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WILDERNESS WAYS 



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BY 




WILLIAM J. LONG j%\ > 




BOSTON, U.S.A. 
GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

1900 



53737 



Librae y of Ocma****** 

SEP 29 1900 

C*f jrfefct «try 

StfCND copy. 

0* «vw«J to 

OROt* DIVISION, 
NOV 12 190U 



Copyright, igoo 
By WILLIAM J. LONG 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 






'■-■ 



TO KlLLOOLEET, Little Sweet- 
Voice, who shares my camp and 
makes sunshine as I work and play 



PREFACE. 



^T^HE following sketches, like the " Ways of Wood Folk," 

are the result of many years of personal observation in 

the woods and fields. They are studies of animals, pure and 

simple, not of animals with human motives and imaginations. 

Indeed, it is hardly necessary for genuine interest to 
give human traits to the beasts. Any animal is inter- 
esting enough as an animal, and has character enough of 
his own, without borrowing anything from man — as one 
may easily find out by watching long enough. 

Most wild creatures have but small measure of gentleness 
in them, and that only by instinct and at short stated sea- 
sons. Hence I have given both sides and both kinds, the 
shadows and lights, the savagery as well as the gentleness 
of the wilderness creatures. 

It were pleasanter, to be sure, especially when you have 
been deeply touched by some exquisite bit of animal devo- 
tion, to let it go at that, and to carry with you henceforth an 
ideal creature. 

But the whole truth is better — better for you, better for 
children — else personality becomes confused with mere 



vi Preface. 

animal individuality, and love turns to instinct, and senti- 
ment vaporizes into sentimentality. 

This mother fox or fish-hawk here, this strong mother 
loon or lynx that to-day brings the quick moisture to your 
eyes by her utter devotion to the little helpless things which 
great Mother Nature gave her to care for, will to-morrow, 
when they are grown, drive those same little ones with 
savage treatment into the world to face its dangers alone, 
and will turn away from their sufferings thereafter with 
astounding indifference. 

It is well to remember this, and to give proper weight to 
the word, when we speak of the love of animals for their 
little ones. 

I met a bear once — but this foolish thing is not to be 
imitated — with two small cubs following at her heels. The 
mother fled into the brush ; the cubs took to a tree. After 
some timorous watching I climbed after the cubs, and shook 
them off, and put them into a bag, and carried them to my 
canoe, squealing and appealing to the one thing in the woods 
that could easily have helped them. I was ready enough to 
quit all claims and to take to the brush myself upon induce- 
ment. But the mother had found a blueberry patch and was 
stuffing herself industriously. 

And I have seen other mother bears since then, and foxes 
and deer and ducks and sparrows, and almost all the wild 
creatures between, driving their own offspring savagely 



Preface. vii 

away. Generally the young go of their own accord as early 
as possible, knowing no affection but only dependence, and 
preferring liberty to authority ; ^ but more than once I have 
been touched by the sight of a little one begging piteously 
to be fed or just to stay, while the mother drove him away 
impatiently. Moreover, they all kill their weaklings, as a 
rule, and the burdensome members of too large a family. 
This is not poetry or idealization, but just plain animal 
nature. 

As for the male animals, little can be said truthfully for 
their devotion. Father fox and wolf, instead of caring for 
their mates and their offspring, as we fondly imagine, live 
apart by themselves in utter selfishness. They do nothing 
whatever for the support or instruction of the young, and are 
never suffered by the mothers to come into the den, lest they 
destroy their own little ones. One need not go to the woods 
to see this ; his own stable or kennel, his own dog or cat 
will be likely to reveal the startling brutality at the first 
good opportunity. 

An indiscriminate love for all animals, likewise, is not the 
best sentiment to cultivate toward creation. Black snakes in 
a land of birds, sharks in the bluefish rips, rabbits in 
Australia, and weasels everywhere are out of place in the 
present economy of nature. Big owls and hawks, represent- 
ing a yearly destruction of thousands of good game birds and 
of untold innocent songsters, may also be profitably studied 



viii Preface. 

with a gun sometimes instead of an opera-glass. A mink is 
good for nothing but his skin ; a red squirrel — I hesitate to 
tell his true character lest I spoil too many tender but false 
ideals about him all at once. 

The point is this, that sympathy is too true a thing to be 
aroused falsely, and that a wise discrimination, which recog- 
nizes good and evil in the woods, as everywhere else in the 
world, and which loves the one and hates the other, is vastly 
better for children, young and old, than the blind sentimen- 
tality aroused by ideal animals with exquisite human pro- 
pensities. Therefore I wrote the story of Kagax, simply 
to show him as he is, and so to make you hate him. 

In this one chapter, the story of Kagax the Weasel, I have 
gathered into a single animal the tricks and cruelties of a 
score of vicious little brutes that I have caught red-handed at 
their work. In the other chapters I have, for the most part, 
again searched my old notebooks and the records of wilder- 
ness camps, and put the individual animals down just as I 

found them. , TT T T 

Wm. J. Long. 

Stamford, September, 1900. 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

I. Megaleep the Wanderer i 

II. KlLLOOLEET, LITTLE SWEET-VOICE .... 26 

III. Kagax the Bloodthirsty ...... 41 

IV. KOOKOOSKOOS, WHO CATCHES THE WRONG RAT . 59 

V. Chigwooltz the Frog 75 

. VI. Cloud Wings the Eagle 88 

VII. Upweekis the Shadow ....:. 108 

viii. hukweem the nlght voice 1 33 

Glossary of Indian Names „ 1 55 



WILDERNESS WAYS. 



I. MEGALEEP THE WANDERER. 




EGALEEP is the big woodland 
caribou of the northern wilder- 
ness. His Milicete name means 
The Wandering One, but it 
ought to mean the Mysterious 
and the Changeful as well. If 
you hear that he is bold and 
fearless, that is true ; and if you are 
told that he is shy and wary and inap- 
proachable, that is also true. For he is 
never the same two days in succession. 
At once shy and bold, solitary and gre- 
garious ; restless as a cloud, yet clinging to his feed- 
ing grounds, spite of wolves and hunters, till he leaves 
them of his own free will ; wild as Kakagos the raven, 
but inquisitive as a blue jay, — he is the most fascinat- 
ing and the least known of all the deer. 

One thing is quite sure, before you begin your 
study : he is never where his tracks are, nor any- 



2 Wilderness Ways. 

where near it. And if after a season's watching and 
following you catch one good glimpse of him, that is 
a good beginning. 

I had always heard and read of Megaleep as an awk- 
ward, ungainly animal, but almost my first glimpse 
of him scattered all that to the winds and set my 
nerves a-tingling in a way that they still remember. 
It was on a great chain of barrens in the New Bruns- 
wick wilderness. I was following the trail of a herd 
of caribou one day, when far ahead a strange clack- 
ing sound came ringing across the snow in the crisp 
winter air. I ran ahead to a point of woods that cut 
off my view from a five-mile barren, only to catch 
breath in astonishment and drop to cover behind a 
scrub spruce. Away up the barren my caribou, a 
big herd of them, were coming like an express train 
straight towards me. At first I could make out only 
a great cloud of steam, a whirl of flying snow, and 
here and there the angry shake of wide antlers or 
the gleam of a black muzzle. The loud clacking of 
their hoofs, sweeping nearer and nearer, gave a snap, 
a tingle, a wild exhilaration to their rush which made 
one want to shout and swing his hat. Presently I 
could make out the individual animals through the 
cloud of vapor that drove down the wind before them, 



Megaleep the Wanderer. 3 

They were going at a splendid trot, rocking easily 
from side to side like pacing colts, power, grace, tire- 
lessness in every stride. Their heads were high, 
their muzzles up, the antlers well back on heaving 
shoulders. Jets of steam burst from their nostrils at 
every bound ; for the thermometer was twenty below 
zero, and the air snapping. A cloud of snow whirled 
out and up behind them ; through it the antlers waved 
like bare oak boughs in the wind ; the sound of 
their hoofs was like the clicking of mighty castanets 
— " Oh for a sledge and bells ! " I thought ; for Santa 
Claus never had such a team. 

So they came on swiftly, magnificently, straight on 
to the cover behind which I crouched with nerves 
thrilling as at a cavalry charge, — till I sprang to my 
feet with a shout and swung my hat; for, as there 
was meat enough in camp, I had small wish to use 
my rifle, and no desire whatever to stand that rush 
at close quarters and be run down. There was a 
moment of wild confusion out on the barren just in 
front of me. The long swinging trot, that caribou 
never change if they can help it, was broken into an 
awkward jumping gallop. The front rank reared, 
plunged, snorted a warning, but were forced onward 
by the pressure behind. Then the leading bulls gave 
a few mighty bounds which brought them close up 



4 Wilderness Ways, 

to me, but left a clear space for the frightened, crowd- 
ing animals behind. The swiftest shot ahead to the 
lead ; the great herd lengthened out from its com- 
pact mass ; swerved easily to the left, as at a word of 
command ; crashed through the fringe of evergreen 
in which I had been hiding, — out into the open again 
with a wild plunge and a loud cracking of hoofs, where 
they all settled into their wonderful trot again, and 
kept on steadily across the barren below. 

That was the sight of a lifetime. One who saw 
it could never again think of caribou as ungainly 
animals. 

Megaleep belongs to the tribe of Ishmael. Indeed, 
his Latin name, as well as his Indian one, signifies 
The Wanderer ; and if you watch him a little while you 
will understand perfectly why he is called so. The 
first time I ever met him in summer, in strong con- 
trast to the winter herd, made his name clear in a 
moment. It was twilight on a wilderness lake. I 
was sitting in my canoe by the inlet, wondering what 
kind of bait to use for a big trout which lived in an 
eddy behind a rock, and which disdained everything 
I offered him. The swallows were busy, skimming 
low, and taking the young mosquitoes as they rose 
from the water. One dipped to the surface near the 
eddy. As he came down I saw a swift gleam in the 



Megaleep the Wanderer. 5 

depths below. He touched the water; there was a 
swirl, a splash — and the swallow was gone. The 
trout had him. 

Then a cow caribou came out of the woods onto 
the grassy point above me to drink. First she 
wandered all over the point, making it look after- 
wards as if a herd had passed. Then she took a sip 
of water by a rock, crossed to my side of the point, 
and took a sip there ; then to the end of the point, 
and another sip ; then back to the first place. A nib- 
ble of grass, and she waded far out from shore to sip 
there ; then back, with a nod to a lily pad, and a sip 
nearer the brook. Finally she meandered a long way 
up the shore out of sight, and when I picked up the 
paddle to go, she came back again. Truly a Wander- 
geist of the woods, like the plover of the coast, who 
never knows what he wants, nor why he circles about 
so, nor where he is going next. 

If you follow the herds over the barrens and through 
the forest in winter, you find the same wandering, 
unsatisfied creature. And if you are a sportsman 
and a keen hunter, with well established ways of 
trailing and stalking, you will be driven to despera- 
tion a score of times before you get acquainted with 
Megaleep. He travels enormous distances without 
any known object. His trail is everywhere ; he is 



6 Wilderness Ways. 

himself nowhere. You scour the country for a week, 
crossing innumerable trails, thinking the surrounding 
woods must be full of caribou ; then a man in a lum- 
ber camp, where you are overtaken by night, tells 
you that he saw the herd you are after 'way down on 
the Renous barrens, thirty miles below. You go 
there, and have the same experience, — signs every- 
where, old signs, new signs, but never a caribou. 
And, ten to one, while you are there, the caribou are 
sniffing your snowshoe track suspiciously back on 
the barrens that you have just left. 

Even in feeding, when you are hot on their trail 
and steal forward expecting to see them every moment, 
it is the same exasperating story. They dig a hole 
through four feet of packed snow to nibble the rein- 
deer lichen that grows everywhere on the barrens. 
Before it is half eaten they wander off to the next 
barren and dig a larger hole ; then away to the 
woods for the gray-green hanging moss that grows 
on the spruces. Here is a fallen tree half covered 
with the rich food. Megaleep nibbles a bite or two, 
then wanders away and away in search of another 
tree like the one he has just left. 

And when you find him at last, the chances are 
still against you. You are stealing forward cau- 
tiously when a fresh sign attracts attention. You 



Megaleep the Wanderer. 7 

stop to examine it a moment. Something gray, dim, 
misty, seems to drift like a cloud through the trees 
ahead. You scarcely notice it till, on your right, a 
stir, and another cloud, and another — The caribou, 
quick, a score of them ! But before your rifle is up 
and you have found the sights, the gray things melt 
into the gray woods and drift away ; and the stalk 
begins all over again. 

The reason for this restlessness is not far to seek. 
Megaleep's ancestors followed regular migrations in 
spring and autumn, like the birds, on the unwooded 
plains beyond the Arctic Circle. Megaleep never 
migrates ; but the old instinct is in him and will not 
let him rest. So he wanders through the year, and 
is never satisfied. 

Fortunately nature has been kind to Megaleep in 
providing him with means to gratify his wandering 
disposition. In winter, moose and red deer must 
gather into yards and stay there. With the first 
heavy storm of December, they gather in small bands 
here and there on the hardwood ridges, and begin to 
make paths in the snow, — long, twisted, crooked 
paths, running for miles in every direction, crossing 
and recrossing in a tangle utterly hopeless to any 
head save that of a deer or moose. These paths they 
keep tramped down and more or less open all winter, 



8 Wilderness Ways. 

so as to feed on the twigs and bark growing on either 
side. Were it not for this curious provision, a single 
severe winter would leave hardly a moose or a deer 
alive in the woods ; for their hoofs are sharp and sink 
deep, and with six feet of snow on a level they can 
scarcely run half a mile outside their paths without 
becoming hopelessly stalled or exhausted. 

It is this great tangle of paths, by the way, which 
makes a deer or a moose yard ; and not the stupid 
hole in the snow which is pictured in the geographies 
and most natural history books. 

But Megaleep the Wanderer makes no such pro- 
vision ; he depends upon Mother Nature to take care 
of him. In summer he is brown, like the great tree 
trunks among which he moves unseen. Then the 
frog of his foot expands and grows spongy, so that 
he can cling to the mountain-side like a goat, or 
move silently over the dead leaves. In winter he 
becomes a soft gray, the better to fade into a snow- 
storm, or to stand concealed in plain sight on the 
edges of the gray, desolate barrens that he loves. 
Then the frog of his foot arches up out of the way; 
the edges of his hoof grow sharp and shell-like, so 
that he can travel over glare ice without slipping, 
and cut the crust to dig down for the moss upon 
which he feeds. The hoofs, moreover, are very large 



Megaleep the Wanderer. 9 

and deeply cleft, so as to spread widely when his 
weight is on them. When you first find his track 
in the snow, you rub your eyes, thinking that a huge 
ox must have passed that way. The dew-claws are 
also large, and the ankle joint so flexible that it lets 
them down upon the snow. So Megaleep has a 
kind of natural snowshoe with which he moves easily 
over the crust, and, except in very deep, soft snows, 
wanders at will, while other deer are prisoners in 
their yards. It is the snapping of these loose hoofs 
and ankle joints that makes the merry clacking sound 
as caribou run. 

Sometimes, however, they overestimate their abili- 
ties, and their wandering disposition brings them into 
trouble. Once I found a herd of seven up to their 
backs in soft snow, and tired out, — a strange condition 
for a caribou to be in. They were taking the affair 
philosophically, resting till they should gather strength 
to flounder to some spruce tops where moss was plenty. 
When I approached gently on snowshoes (I had been 
hunting them diligently the week before to kill them ; 
but this put a different face on the matter) they 
gave a bound or two, then settled deep in the snow, 
and turned their heads and said with their great soft 
eyes : " You have hunted us. Here we are, at your 
mercy." 



io JVilderness Ways. 

They were very much frightened at first ; then I 
thought they grew a bit curious, as I sat down peace- 
ably in the snow to watch them. One — a doe, more 
exhausted than the others, and famished — even nib- 
bled a bit of moss that I pushed near her with a stick. 
I had picked it with gloves, so that the smell of my 
hand was not on it. After an hour or so, if I moved 
softly, they let me approach quite up to them with- 
out shaking their antlers or renewing their desperate 
attempts to flounder away. But I did not touch them. 
That is a degradation which no wild creature will per- 
mit when he is free ; and I would not take advantage 
of their helplessness. 

Did they starve in the snow ? you ask. Oh, no ! 
I went to the place next day and found that they 
had gained the spruce tops, ploughing through the 
snow in great bounds, following the track of the 
strongest, which went ahead to break the way. There 
they fed and rested, then went to some dense thickets 
where they passed the night. In a day or two the 
snow settled and hardened, and they took to their 
wandering again. 

Later, in hunting, I crossed their tracks several times, 
and once I saw them across a barren ; but I left them 
undisturbed, to follow other trails. We had eaten 
together ; they had fed from my hand ; and there 



Megaleep the Wanderer. 1 1 

is no older truce on earth than that, not even in the 
unchanging East, where it originated. 

Megaleep in a storm is a most curious creature, the 
nearest thing to a ghost to be found in the woods. 
More than other animals he feels the falling barom- 
eter. His movements at such times drive you to des- 
peration, if you are following him ; for he wanders 
unceasingly. When the storm breaks he has a way 
of appearing suddenly, as if he were seeking you, 
when by his trail you thought him miles ahead. And 
the way he disappears — just melts into the thick driv- 
ing flakes and the shrouded trees — is most uncanny. 
Six or seven caribou once played hide-and-seek with 
me that way, giving me vague glimpses here and 
there, drawing near to get my scent, yet keeping me 
looking up wind into the driving snow where I could 
see nothing distinctly. And all the while they drifted 
about like so many huge flakes of the storm, watching 
my every movement, seeing me perfectly. 

At such times they fear little, and even lay aside 
their usual caution. I remember trailing a large 
herd one day from early morning, keeping near them 
all the time, and jumping them half a dozen times, 
yet never getting a glimpse because of their extreme 
watchfulness. For some reason they were unwilling 
to leave a small chain of barrens. Perhaps they 



12 Wilderness Ways. 

knew the storm was coming, when they would be 
safe ; and so, instead of swinging off into a ten-mile 
straightaway trot at the first alarm, they kept dodging 
back and forth within a two-mile circle. At last, late 
in the afternoon, I followed the trail to the edge of 
dense evergreen thickets. Caribou generally rest in 
open woods or on the windward edge of a barren. 
Eyes for the open, nose for the cover, is their motto. 
And I thought, " They know perfectly well I am fol- 
lowing them, and so have lain down in that tangle. 
If I go in, they will hear me ; a wood mouse could 
hardly keep quiet in such a place. If I go round, 
they will catch my scent ; if I wait, so will they ; if 
I jump them, the scrub will cover their retreat 
perfectly." 

As I sat down in the snow to think it over, a heavy 
rush deep within the thicket told me that something, 
not I certainly, had again started them. Suddenly 
the air darkened, and above the excitement of the 
hunt I felt the storm coming. A storm in the woods 
is no joke when you are six miles from camp without 
axe or blanket. I broke away from the trail and 
started for the head of the second barren on the run. 
If I could make that, I was safe ; for there was a 
stream near, which led near to camp; and one cannot 
very well lose a stream, even in a snowstorm. But 



Megaleep the Wanderer, 13 

before I was halfway the flakes were driving thick 
and soft in my face. Another half-mile, and one 
could not see fifty feet in any direction. Still I kept 
on, holding my course by the wind and my compass. 
Then, at the foot of the second barren, my snowshoes 
stumbled into great depressions in the snow, and I 
found myself on the fresh trail of my caribou again. 
" If I am lost, I will at least have a caribou steak, and 
a skin to wrap me up in," I said, and plunged after 
them. As I went, the old Mother Goose rhyme of 
nursery days came back and set itself to hunting 
music : 

Bye, baby bunting, 

Daddy 's gone a-hunting, 

For to catch .a rabbit skin 

To wrap the baby bunting in. 

Presently I began to sing it aloud. It cheered one 
up in the storm, and the lilt of it kept time to the 
leaping kind of gallop which is the easiest way to 
run on snowshoes : " Bye, baby bunting ; bye, baby 
bunting— Hello!" 

A dark mass loomed suddenly up before me on the 
open barren. The storm lightened a bit, before set- 
ting in heavier; and there were the caribou just in 
front of me, standing in a compact mass, the weaker 
ones in the middle. They had no thought nor fear 



14 Wilderness Ways. 

of me apparently ; they showed no sign of anger or 
uneasiness. Indeed, they barely moved aside as I 
snowshoed up, in plain sight, without any precaution 
whatever. And these were the same animals that 
had fled upon my approach at daylight, and that had 
escaped me all day with marvelous cunning. 

As with other deer, the storm is Megaleep's natural 
protector. When it comes he thinks that he is safe ; 
that nobody can see him ; that the falling snow will 
fill his tracks and kill his scent ; and that whatever 
follows must speedily seek cover for itself. So he 
gives up watching, and lies down where he will. So 
far as his natural enemies are concerned, he is safe 
in this ; for lynx and wolf and panther seek shelter 
with a falling barometer. They can neither see nor 
smell; and they are all afraid. I have. often noticed 
that among all animals and birds, from the least to 
the greatest, there is always a truce when the storms 
are out. 

But the most curious thing I ever stumbled into was 
a caribou school. That sounds queer ; but it is more 
common in the wilderness than one thinks. All 
gregarious animals have perfectly well defined social 
regulations, which the young must learn and respect. 
To learn them, they go to school in their own 
interesting way. 



Megaleep the Wanderer. 15 

The caribou I am speaking of now are all wood- 
land caribou — larger, finer animals every way than 
the barren-ground caribou of .the desolate unwooded 
regions farther north. In summer they live singly, 
rearing their young in deep forest seclusions. There 
each one does as he pleases. So when you meet a 
caribou in summer, he is a different creature, and 
has more unknown and curious ways than when he 
runs with the herd in midwinter. I remember a 
solitary old bull that lived on the mountain-side 
opposite my camp one summer, a most interesting 
mixture of fear and boldness, of reserve and intense 
curiosity. After I had hunted him a few times, and 
he found that my purpose was wholly peaceable, he 
took to hunting me in the same way, just to find out 
who I was, and what queer thing I was doing. Some- 
times I would see him at sunset on a dizzy cliff across 
the lake, watching for the curl of smoke or the coming 
of a canoe. And when I dove in for a swim and went 
splashing, dog-paddle way, about the island where my 
tent was, he would walk about in the greatest excite- 
ment, and start a dozen times to come down ; but 
always he ran back for another look, as if fascinated. 
Again he would come down on a burned point near 
the deep hole where I was fishing, and, hiding his 
body in the underbrush, would push his horns up 



1 6 Wilderness Ways. 

into the bare branches of a withered shrub, so as to 
make them inconspicuous, and stand watching me. 
As long as he was quiet, it was impossible to see him 
there ; but I could always make him start nervously 
by flashing a looking-glass, or flopping a fish in the 
water, or whistling a jolly Irish jig. And when I tied 
a bright tomato can to a string and set it whirling 
round my head, or set my handkerchief for a flag on 
the end of my trout rod, then he could not stand it 
another minute, but came running down to the shore, 
to stamp, and fidget, and stare nervously, and scare 
himself with twenty alarms while trying to make up 
his mind to swim out and satisfy his burning desire 
to know all about it. But I am forgetting the caribou 
schools. 

Wherever there are barrens — treeless plains in 
the midst of dense forest — the caribou collect in 
small herds as winter comes on, following the old 
gregarious instinct. Then each one cannot do as 
he pleases any more ; and it is for this winter and 
spring life together, when laws must be known, and 
the rights of the individual be laid aside for the good 
of the herd, that the young are trained. 

One afternoon in late summer I was drifting down 
the Toledi River, casting for trout, when a movement 
in the bushes ahead caught my attention. A great 



Megaleep the Wanderer. ij 

swampy tract of ground, covered with grass and low 
brush, spread out on either side the stream. From 
the canoe I made out two or three waving lines of 
bushes where some animals were making their way 
through the swamp towards a strip of big timber 
which formed a kind of island in the middle. 

Pushing my canoe into the grass, I made for a 
point just astern of the nearest quivering line of 
bushes. A glance at a bit of soft ground showed 
me the trail of a mother caribou with her calf. I 
followed cautiously, the wind being ahead in my 
favor. They were not hurrying, and I took good 
pains not to alarm them. 

When I reached the timber and crept like a snake 
through the underbrush, there were the caribou, five 
or six mother animals, and nearly twice as many little 
ones, well grown, which had evidently just come in 
from all directions. They were gathered in a natural 
opening, fairly clear of bushes, with a fallen tree or 
two, which served a good purpose later. The sun- 
light fell across it in great golden bars, making light 
and shadow to play in ; all around was the great 
marsh, giving protection from enemies ; dense under- 
brush screened them from prying eyes — and this 
was their schoolroom. 

The little ones were pushed out into the. middle, 



1 8 Wilderness Ways. 

away from the mothers to whom they clung instinc- 
tively, and were left to get acquainted with each 
other, which they did very shyly at first, like so many 
strange children. It was all new and curious, this 
meeting of their kind ; for till now they had lived in 
dense solitudes, each one knowing no living creature 
save its own mother. Some were timid, and backed 
away as far as possible into the shadow, looking with 
wild, wide eyes from one to another of the little 
caribou, and bolting to their mothers' sides at every 
unusual movement. Others were bold, and took to 
butting at the first encounter. But careful, kindly 
eyes watched over them. Now and then a mother 
caribou would come from the shadows and push a 
little one gently from his retreat under a bush out 
into the company. Another would push her way 
between two heads that lowered at each other threat- 
eningly, and say with a warning shake of her head 
that butting was no good way to get along together. 
I had once thought, watching a herd on the barrens 
through my glasses, that they are the gentlest of ani- 
mals with each other. Here in the little school in 
the heart of the swamp I found the explanation of 
things. 

For over an hour I lay there and watched, my curi- 
osity growing more eager every moment; for most 



Megaleep the Wanderer. 19 

of what I saw I could not comprehend, having no 
key, nor understanding why certain youngsters, who 
needed reproof according to my standards, were let 
alone, and others kept moving constantly, and still 
others led aside often to be talked to by their mothers. 
But at last came a lesson in which all joined; and 
which could not be misunderstood, not even by a 
man. It was the jumping lesson. 

Caribou are naturally poor jumpers. Beside a deer, 
who often goes out of his way to jump a fallen tree 
just for the fun of it, they have no show whatever ; 
though they can travel much farther in a day and 
much easier. Their gait is a swinging trot, from 
which it is impossible to jump; and if you frighten 
them out of their trot into a gallop and keep them 
at it, they soon grow exhausted. Countless genera- 
tions on the northern wastes, where there is no need 
of jumping, have bred this habit, and modified their 
muscles accordingly. But now a race of caribou has 
moved south into the woods, where great trees lie 
fallen across the way, and where, if Megaleep is in a 
hurry or there is anybody behind him, jumping is 
a necessity. Still he does n't like it, and avoids it 
whenever possible. The little ones, left to them- 
selves, would always crawl under a tree, or trot 
round it. And this is another thing to overcome, 



20 Wilderness Ways. 

and another lesson to be taught in the caribou 
school. 

As I watched them the mothers all came out from 
the shadows and began trotting round the opening, 
the little ones keeping close as possible, each one to 
its mother's side. Then the old ones went faster ; the 
calves were left in a long line stringing out behind. 
Suddenly the leader veered in to the edge of the tim- 
ber and went over a fallen tree with a jump ; the cows 
followed splendidly, rising on one side, falling grace- 
fully on the other, like gray waves racing past the end 
of a jetty. But the first little one dropped his head 
obstinately at the tree and stopped short. The next 
one did the same thing ; only he ran his head into the 
first one's legs and knocked them out from under him. 
The others whirled with a ba-a-a-ah, and scampered 
round the tree and up to their mothers, who had 
turned now and stood watching anxiously to see the 
effect of their lesson. Then it began over again. 

It was true kindergarten teaching ; for under guise 
of a frolic the calves were being taught a needful les- 
son, — not only to jump, but, far more important than 
that, to follow a leader, and to go where he goes with- 
out question or hesitation. For the leaders on the 
barrens are wise old bulls that make no mistakes. 
Most of the little caribou took to the sport very well, 



Megaleep the Wanderer. 21 

and presently followed the mothers over the low hur- 
dles. But a few were timid ; and then came the most 
intensely interesting bit of the whole strange school, 
when a little one would be led to a tree and butted 
from behind till he took the jump. 

There was no " consent of the governed " in that 
governing. The mother knew, and the calf did n't, 
just what was good for him. 

It was this last lesson that broke up the school. 
Just in front of my hiding place a tree fell out into 
the opening. A mother caribou brought her calf up 
to this unsuspectingly, and leaped over, expecting the 
little one to follow. As she struck she whirled like a 
top and stood like a beautiful statue, her head point- 
ing in my direction. Her eyes were bright with fear, 
the ears set forward, the nostrils spread to catch every 
tainted atom from the air. Then she turned and 
glided silently away, the little one close to her side, 
looking up and touching her frequently as if to whis- 
per, What is it? what is it? but making no sound. 
There was no signal given, no alarm of any kind that 
I could understand ; yet the lesson stopped instantly. 
The caribou glided away like shadows. Over across 
the opening a bush swayed here and there ; a leaf 
quivered as if something touched its branch. Then 
the schoolroom was empty and the woods all still. 



22 Wilderness Ways. 

There is another curious habit of Megaleep ; and 
this one I am utterly at a loss to account for. When 
he is old and feeble, and the tireless muscles will no 
longer carry him with the herd over the wind-swept 
barrens, and he falls sick at last, he goes to a spot far 
away in the woods, where generations of his ancestors 
have preceded him, and there lays him down to die. 
It is the caribou burying ground ; and all the animals 
of a certain district, or a certain herd (I am unable to 
tell which), will go there when sick or sore wounded, 
if they have strength enough to reach the spot. For 
it is far away from the scene of their summer homes 
and their winter wanderings. 

I know one such place, and visited it twice from 
my summer camp. It is in a dark tamarack swamp 
by a lonely lake at the head of the Little-South-West 
Miramichi River, in New Brunswick. I found it one 
summer when trying to force my way from the big 
lake to a smaller one, where trout were plenty. In 
the midst of the swamp I stumbled upon a pair 
of caribou skeletons, which surprised me ; for there 
were no hunters within a hundred miles, and at that 
time the lake had lain for many years un visited. I 
thought of fights between bucks, and bull moose, 
how two bulls will sometimes lock horns in a rush, 
and are too weakened to break the lock, and so die 



Megaleep the Wanderer. 23 

together of exhaustion. Caribou are more peaceable ; 
they rarely fight that way ; and, besides, the horns 
here were not locked together, but lying well apart. 
As I searched about, looking for the explanation of 
things, thinking of wolves, yet wondering why the 
bones were not gnawed, I found another skeleton, 
much older, then four or five more ; some quite fresh, 
others crumbling into mould. Bits of old bone and 
some splendid antlers were scattered here and there 
through the underbrush ; and when I scraped away 
the dead leaves and moss, there were older bones and 
fragments mouldering beneath. 

I scarcely understood the meaning of it at the 
time ; but since then I have met men, Indians and 
hunters, who have spent much time in the wilderness, 
who speak of " bone yards " which they have dis- 
covered, places where they can go at any time and 
be sure of finding a good set of caribou antlers. 
And they say that the caribou go there to die. 

All animals, when feeble with age, or sickly, or 
wounded, have the habit of going away deep into 
the loneliest coverts, and there lying down where 
the leaves shall presently cover them. So that one 
rarely finds a dead bird or animal in the woods 
where thousands die yearly. Even your dog, that 
was born and lived by your house, often disappears 



24 Wilderness Ways. 

when you thought him too feeble to walk. Death 
calls him gently ; the old wolf stirs deep within him, 
and he goes away where the master he served will 
never find him. And so with your cat, which is 
only skin-deep a domestic animal ; and so with your 
canary, which in death alone would be free, and beats 
his failing wings against the cage in which he lived 
so long content. But these all go away singly, each 
to his own place. The caribou is the only animal I 
know that remembers, when his separation comes, the 
ties which bound him to the herd winter after winter, 
through sun and storm, in the forest where all was 
peace and plenty, and on the lonely barrens where the 
gray wolf howled on his track ; so that he turns with 
his last strength from the herd he is leaving to the 
greater herd which has gone before him — still follow- 
ing his leaders, remembering his first lesson to the end. 
Sometimes I have wondered whether this also were 
taught in the caribou school ; whether once in his 
life Megaleep were led to the spot and made to pass 
through it, so that he should feel its meaning and 
remember. That is not likely; for the one thing 
which an animal cannot understand is death. And 
there were no signs of living caribou anywhere near 
the place that I discovered ; though down at the 
other end of the lake their tracks were everywhere. 



Megaleep the Wanderer. 25 

There are other questions, which one can only ask 
without answering. Is this silent gathering merely 
a tribute to the old law of the herd, or does Mega- 
leep, with his last strength, still think to cheat his old 
enemy, and go away where the wolf that followed him 
all his life shall not find him? How was his resting 
place first selected, and what leaders searched out the 
ground ? What sound or sign, what murmur of wind 
in the pines, or lap of ripples on the shore, or song of 
the veery at twilight made them pause and say, Here 
is the place? How does he know, he whose thoughts 
are all of life, and who never looked on death, where 
the great silent herd is that no caribou ever sees but 
once ? And what strange instinct guides Megaleep 
to the spot where all his wanderings end at last ? 



II. KILLOOLEET, LITTLE SWEET-VOICE. 



HE day was cold, the woods 
were wet, and the weather 
was beastly altogether when Kil- 
looleet first came and sang on my 
ridgepole. The fishing was poor 
down in the big lake, and there 
were signs of civilization here 
and there, in the shape of set- 
tlers' cabins, which we did not 
like ; so we had pushed up river, 
Simmo and I, thirty miles in the 
rain, to a favorite camping ground 
on a smaller lake, where we had the wilderness all to 
ourselves. 

The rain was still falling, and the lake white- 
capped, and the forest all misty and wind-blown 
when we ran our canoes ashore by the old cedar 
that marked our landing place. First we built a 
big fire to dry some boughs to sleep upon ; then we 
built our houses, Simmo a bark commoosie, and I a 

little tent ; and I was inside, getting dry clothes out 

26 




Killooleet y Little Sweet -Voice. 27 

of a rubber bag, when I heard a white-throated spar- 
row calling cheerily his Indian name, O hear, sweet 
Killooleet-lillooleet-lillooleet ! And the sound was so 
sunny, so good to hear in the steady drip of rain on 
the roof, that I went out to see the little fellow who 
had bid us welcome to the wilderness. 

Simmo had heard too. He was on his hands and 
knees, just his dark face peering by the corner stake 
of his commoosie, so as to see better the little singer 
on my tent. — " Have better weather and better luck 
now. Killooleet sing on ridgepole," he said confi- 
dently. Then we spread some cracker crumbs for 
the guest and turned in to sleep till better times. 

That was the beginning of a long acquaintance. 
It was also the first of many social calls from a whole 
colony of white-throats (Tom-Peabody birds) that 
lived on the mountain-side just behind my tent, and 
that came one by one to sing to us, and to get 
acquainted, and to share our crumbs. Sometimes, 
too, in rainy weather, when the woods seemed wetter 
than the lake, and Simmo would be sleeping philo- 
sophically, and I reading, or tying trout flies in the 
tent, I would hear a gentle stir and a rustle or two 
just outside, under the tent fly. Then, if I crept out 
quietly, I would find Killooleet exploring my goods 
to find where the crackers grew, or just resting 



28 Wilderness Ways. 

contentedly under the fly where it was dry and 
comfortable. 

It was good to live there among them, with the 
mountain at our backs and the lake at our feet, and 
peace breathing in every breeze or brooding silently 
over the place at twilight. Rain or shine, day or 
night, these white-throated sparrows are the sunniest, 
cheeriest folk to be found anywhere in the woods. I 
grew to understand and love the Milicete name, Kil- 
looleet, Little Sweet-Voice, for its expressiveness. 
" Hour-Bird " the Micmacs call him ; for they say he 
sings every hour, and so tells the time, " all same 's 
one white man's watch." And indeed there is rarely 
an hour, day or night, in the northern woods when 
you cannot hear Killooleet singing. Other birds 
grow silent after they have won their mates, or they 
grow fat and lazy as summer advances, or absorbed 
in the care of their young, and have no time nor 
thought for singing. But not so Killooleet. He is 
kinder to his mate after he has won her, and never lets 
selfishness or the summer steal away his music ; for 
he knows that the woods are brighter for his singing. 

Sometimes, at night, I would take a brand from the 
fire, and follow a deer path that wound about the 
mountain, or steal away into a dark thicket and strike 
a parlor match. As the flame shot up, lighting its 



Killooleet, Little Sweet -Voice. 29 

little circle of waiting leaves, there would be a stir 
beside me in the underbrush, or overhead in the fir ; 
then tinkling out of the darkpess, like a brook under 
the snow, would come the low clear strain of melody 
that always set my heart a-dancing, — I'm here, sweet 
Killooleet-lillooleet-lillooleet, the good-night song of my 
gentle neighbor. Then along the path a little way, 
and another match, and another song to make one 
better and his rest sweeter. 

By day I used to listen to them, hours long at a 
stretch, practicing to perfect their song. These were 
the younger birds, of course ; and for a long time 
they puzzled me. Those who know Killooleet's song 
will remember that it begins with three clear sweet 
notes ; but very few have observed the break between 
the second and third of these. I noticed, first of all, 
that certain birds would start the song twenty times 
in succession, yet never get beyond the second note. 
And when I crept up, to find out about it, I would 
find them sitting disconsolately, deep in shadow, 
instead of out in the light where they love to sing, 
with a pitiful little droop of wings and tail, and the 
air of failure and dejection in every movement. Then 
again these same singers would touch the third note, 
and always in such cases they would prolong the 
last trill, the lillooleet-lillooleet (the Peabody-Peabody, 



30 Wilderness Ways. 

as some think of it), to an indefinite length, instead 
of stopping at the second or third repetition, which 
is the rule with good singers. Then they would 
come out of the shadow, and stir about briskly, and 
sing again with an air of triumph. 

One day, while lying still in the underbrush watch- 
ing a wood mouse, Killooleet, a fine male bird and a 
perfect singer, came and sang on a branch just over 
my head, not noticing me. Then I discovered that 
there is a trill, a tiny grace note or yodel, at the end 
of his second note. I listened carefully to other 
singers, as close as I could get, and found that it is 
always there, and is the one difficult part of the song. 
You must be very close to the bird to appreciate the 
beauty of this little yodel ; for ten feet away it sounds 
like a faint cluck interrupting the flow of the third 
note ; and a little farther away you cannot hear it 
at all. 

Whatever its object, Killooleet regards this as the 
indispensable part of his song, and never goes on to 
the third note unless he gets the second perfectly. 
That accounts for the many times when one hears 
only the first two notes. That accounts also for the 
occasional prolonged trill which one hears ; for when 
a young bird has tried many times for his grace note 
without success, and then gets it unexpectedly, he is 



Killooleet, Little Sweet -Voice. 31 

so pleased with himself that he forgets he is not 
Whippoorwill, who tries to sing as long as the brook 
without stopping, and so keeps up the final lillooleet- 
lillooleet as long as he has an atom of breath left to 
do it with. 

But of all the Killooleets, — and there were many 
that I soon recognized, either by their songs, or by 
some peculiarity in their striped caps or brown jackets, 
— the most interesting was the one who first perched 
on my ridgepole and bade me welcome to his camp- 
ing ground. I soon learned to distinguish him easily ; 
his cap was very bright, and his white cravat very 
full, and his song never stopped at the second note, for 
he had mastered the trill perfectly. Then, too, he was 
more friendly and fearless than all the others. The 
morning after our arrival (it was better weather, as 
Simmo and Killooleet had predicted) we were eating 
breakfast by the fire, when he lit on the ground close 
by, and turned his head sidewise to look at us curi- 
ously. I tossed him a big crumb, which made him 
run away in fright ; but when he thought we were not 
looking he stole back, touched, tasted, ate the whole 
of it. And when I threw him another crumb, he 
hopped to meet it. 

After that he came regularly to meals, and would 
look critically over the tin plate which I placed at my 



32 Wilderness Ways. 

feet, and pick and choose daintily from the cracker 
and trout and bacon and porridge which I offered 
him. Soon he began to take bits away with him, 
and I could hear him, just inside the fringe of under- 
brush, persuading his mate to come too and share his 
plate. But she was much shyer than he ; it was sev- 
eral days before I noticed her flitting in and out of 
the shadowy underbrush ; and when I tossed her the 
first crumb, she flew away in a terrible fright. Gradu- 
ally, however, Killooleet persuaded her that we were 
kindly, and she came often to meals ; but she would 
never come near, to eat from my tin plate, till after I 
had gone away. 

Never a day now passed that one or both of the 
birds did not rest on my tent. When I put my head 
out, like a turtle out of his shell, in the early morning 
to look at the weather, Killooleet would look down 
from the projecting end of the ridgepole and sing good- 
morning. And when I had been out late on the lake, 
night-fishing, or following the inlet for beaver, or 
watching the grassy points for caribou, or just drift- 
ing along shore silently to catch the night sounds and 
smells of the woods, I would listen with childish anti- 
cipation for Killooleet's welcome as I approached the 
landing. He had learned to recognize the sounds of 
my coming, the rub of a careless paddle, the ripple 



Killooleet, Little Sweet -Voice. 33 

of water under the bow, or the grating of pebbles on 
the beach ; and with Simmo asleep, and the fire low, 
it was good to be welcomed back by a cheery little 
voice in the darkness ; for he always sang when he 
heard me. Sometimes I would try to surprise him ; 
but his sleep was too light and his ears too keen. 
The canoe would glide up to the old cedar and touch 
the shore noiselessly ; but with the first crunch of 
gravel under my foot, or the rub of my canoe as I 
lifted it out, he would waken ; and his song, all sweet- 
ness and cheer, / 'm here, sweet Killooleet-lillooleet- 
lillooleet, would ripple out of the dark underbrush 
where his nest was. 

I am glad now to think that I never saw that nest, 
though it was scarcely ten yards from my tent, until 
after the young had flown, and Killooleet cared no 
more about it. I knew the bush in which it was, 
close by the deer path ; could pick out from my fire- 
place the thick branch that sheltered it ; for I often 
watched the birds coming and going. I have no 
doubt that Killooleet would have welcomed me there 
without fear ; but his mate never laid aside her shy- 
ness about it, never went to it directly when I was 
looking, and I knew he would like me better if I 
respected her little secret. 

Soon, from the mate's infrequent visits, and from 



34 IVilderness Ways, 

the amount of food which Killooleet took away with 
him, I knew she was brooding her eggs. And when 
at last both birds came together, and, instead of help- 
ing themselves hungrily, each took the largest morsel 
he could carry and hurried away to the nest, I knew 
that the little ones were come ; and I spread the plate 
more liberally, and moved it away to the foot of the 
old cedar, where Killooleet's mate would not be afraid 
to come at any time. 

One day, not long after, as I sat at a late breakfast 
after the morning's fishing, there was a great stir in 
the underbrush. Presently Killooleet came skipping 
out, all fuss and feathers, running back and forth with 
an air of immense importance between the last bush 
and the plate by the cedar, crying out in his own 
way, " Here it is, here it is, all right, just by the old 
tree as usual. Crackers, trout, brown bread, porridge; 
come on, come on ; don't be afraid. He *s here, but 
he won't harm. I know him. Come on, come on ! " 

Soon his little gray mate appeared under the last 
bush, and after much circumspection came hopping 
towards the breakfast ; and after her, in a long line, 
five little Killooleets, hopping, fluttering, cheeping, 
stumbling, — all in a fright at the big world, but all in 
a desperate hurry for crackers and porridge ad libitum; 
now casting hungry eyes at the plate under the old 



Killooleet, Little Sweet -Voice. 35 

cedar, now stopping to turn their heads sidewise to 
see the big kind animal with only two legs, that 
Killooleet had told them about, no doubt, many 
times. 

After that we had often seven guests to breakfast, 
instead of two. It was good to hear them, the lively 
tink, tink-a-tink of their little bills on the tin plate in a 
merry tattoo, as I ate my own tea and trout thankfully. 
I had only to raise my eyes to see them in a bob- 
bing brown ring about my bounty ; and, just beyond 
them, the lap of ripples on the beach, the lake glinting 
far away in the sunshine, and a bark canoe fretting at 
the landing, swinging, veering, nodding at the ripples, 
and beckoning me to come away as soon as I had 
finished my breakfast. 

Before the little JKillooleets had grown accustomed 
to things, however, occurred the most delicious bit of 
our summer camping. It was only a day or two after 
their first appearance ; they knew simply that crumbs 
and a welcome awaited them at my camp, but had 
not yet learned that the tin plate in the cedar roots 
was their special portion. Simmo had gone off at 
daylight, looking up beaver signs for his fall trapping. 
I had just returned from the morning fishing, and was 
getting breakfast, when I saw an otter come out into 
the lake from a cold brook over on the east shore. 



36 Wilderness Ways. 

Grabbing a handful of figs, and some pilot bread from 
the cracker box, I paddled away after the otter ; for 
that is an animal which one has small chance to watch 
nowadays. Besides, I had found a den over near the 
brook, and I wanted to find out, if possible, how a 
mother otter teaches her young to swim. For, though 
otters live much in the water and love it, the young 
ones are afraid of it as so many kittens. So the 
mother — 

But I must tell about that elsewhere. I did not 
find out that day ; for the young were already good 
swimmers. I watched the den two or three hours 
from a good hiding place, and got several glimpses 
of the mother and the little ones. On the way back 
I ran into a little bay where a mother shelldrake was 
teaching her brood to dive and catch trout. There 
was also a big frog there that always sat in the same 
place, and that I used to watch. Then I thought of 
a trap, two miles away, which Simmo had set, and went 
to see if Nemox, the cunning fisher, who destroys 
the sable traps in winter, had been caught at his 
own game. So it was afternoon, and I was hungry, 
when I paddled back to camp. It occurred to me 
suddenly that Killooleet might be hungry too ; for. 
I had neglected to feed him. He had grown sleek 
and comfortable of late, and never went insect hunt- 



Killooleet y Little Sweet -Voice. $7 

ing when he could get cold fried trout and corn 
bread. 

I landed silently and stole .up to the tent to see if 
he were exploring under the fly, as he sometimes did 
when I was away. A curious sound, a hollow tunk, 
tunk, tunk, tunk-a-tunk, grew louder as I approached. 
I stole to the big cedar, where I could see the fire- 
place and the little opening before my tent, and 
noticed first that I had left the cracker box -open (it 
was almost empty) when I hurried away after the 
otter. The curious sound was inside, growing more 
eager every moment — tunk, tunk, tunk-a-trrrrrrr- 
runk, tunk, tunk ! 

I crept on my hands and knees to the box, to see 
what queer thing had found his way to the crackers, 
and peeped cautiously over the edge. There were 
Killooleet, and Mrs. Killooleet, and the five little 
Killooleets, just seven hopping brown backs and 
bobbing heads, helping themselves to the crackers. 
And the sound of their bills on the empty box made 
the jolliest tattoo that ever came out of a camp- 
ing kit. 

I crept away more cautiously than I had come, and, 
standing carelessly in my tent door, whistled the call 
I always used in feeding the birds. Like a flash 
Killooleet appeared on the edge of the cracker box, 



38 Wilderness Ways. 

looking very much surprised. " I thought you were 
away; why, I thought you were away," he seemed to 
be saying. Then he clucked, and the tunk-a-tunk 
ceased instantly. Another cluck, and Mrs. Killooleet 
appeared, looking frightened ; then, one after another, 
the five little Killooleets bobbed up ; and there they 
sat in a solemn row on the edge of the cracker box, 
turning their heads sidewise to see me better. 

"There!" said Killooleet, "didn't I tell you he 
would n't hurt you ? " And like five winks the five 
little Killooleets were back in the box, and the tunk- 
a-tunking began again. 

This assurance that they might do as they pleased, 
and help themselves undisturbed to whatever they 
found, seemed to remove the last doubt from the 
mind of even the little gray mate. After that they 
stayed most of the time close about my tent, and 
were never so far away, or so busy insect hunt- 
ing, that they would not come when I whistled 
and scattered crumbs. The little Killooleets grew 
amazingly, and no wonder ! They were always 
eating, always hungry. I took good pains to give 
them less than they wanted, and so had the satis- 
faction of feeding them often, and of finding their 
tin plate picked clean whenever I came back from 
fishing. 



Killooleet y Little Sweet -Voice, 39 

Did the woods seem lonely to Killooleet when 
we paddled away at last and left the wilderness for 
another year ? That is a question which I would 
give much, or watch long, to answer. There is 
always a regret at leaving a good camping ground, 
but I had never packed up so unwillingly before. 
Killooleet was singing, cheery as ever ; but my own 
heart gave a minor chord of sadness to his trill that 
was not there when he sang on my ridgepole. Before 
leaving I had baked a loaf, big and hard, which I 
fastened with stakes at the foot of the old cedar, with 
a tin plate under it and a bark roof above, so that 
when it rained, and insects were hidden under the 
leaves, and their hunting was no fun because the 
woods were wet, Killooleet and his little ones would 
find food, and remember me. And so we paddled 
away and left him to the wilderness. 

A year later my canoe touched the same old land- 
ing. For ten months I had been in the city, where 
Killooleet never sings, and where the wilderness is 
only a memory. In the fall, on some long tramps, I 
had occasional glimpses of the little singer, solitary 
now and silent, stealing southward ahead of the 
winter. And in the spring he showed himself rarely 
in the underbrush on country roads, eager, restless, 
chirping, hurrying northward where the streams were 



40 Wilderness Ways. 

clear and the big woods budding. But never a song 
in all that time ; my ears were hungry for his voice 
as I leaped out to run eagerly to the big cedar. 
There were the stakes, and the tin plate, and the bark 
roof all crushed by the snows of winter. The bread 
was gone ; what Killooleet had spared, Tookhees the 
wood mouse had eaten thankfully. I found the old 
tent poles and put up my house leisurely, a hundred 
happy memories thronging about me. In the midst 
of them came a call, a clear whistle, — and there he 
was, the same full cravat, the same bright cap, and 
the same perfect song to set my nerves a-tingling: 
/ "m here, sweet Killooleet-lillooleet-lillooleet! And when 
I put crumbs by the old fireplace, he flew down to 
help himself, and went off with the biggest one, as of 
yore, to his nest by the deer path. 



III. KAGAX 
THE BLOODTHIRSTY. 

HIS is the story of one day, the 

last one, in the life of Kagax 

the Weasel, who turns white in winter, 

and yellow in spring, and brown in 

summer, the better to hide his villainy. 

It was early twilight when Kagax came 
out of his den in the rocks, under the old 
pine that lightning had blasted. Day and 
night were meeting swiftly but warily, as 
they always meet in the woods. The life 
of the sunshine came stealing nestwards 
and denwards in the peace of a long day and a full 
stomach; the night life began to stir in its coverts, 
eager, hungry, whining. Deep in the wild raspberry 
thickets a wood thrush rang his vesper bell softly; 
from the mountain top a night hawk screamed back 
an answer, and came booming down to earth, where 
the insects were rising in myriads. Near the thrush 
a striped chipmunk sat chunk-a-chunking his sleepy 
curiosity at a burned log which a bear had just torn 

41 




42 Wilderness Ways. 

open for red ants ; while down on the lake shore a 
cautious plash-plash told where a cow moose had 
come out of the alders with her calf to sup on 
the yellow lily roots and sip the freshest water. 
Everywhere life was stirring ; everywhere cries, calls, 
squeaks, chirps, rustlings, which only the wood- 
dweller knows how to interpret, broke in upon the 
twilight stillness. 

Kagax grinned and showed all his wicked little 
teeth as the many voices went up from lake and 
stream and forest. " Mine, all mine — to kill," he 
snarled, and his eyes began to glow deep red. Then 
he stretched one sinewy paw after another, rolled 
over, climbed a tree, and jumped down from a sway- 
ing twig to get the sleep all out of him. 

Kagax had slept too much, and was mad with the 
world. The night before, he had killed from sunset 
to sunrise, and much tasting of blood had made him 
heavy. So he had slept all day long, only stirring 
once to kill a partridge that had drummed near his 
den and waked him out of sleep. But he was too 
heavy to hunt then, so he crept back again, leaving 
the bird untasted under the end of his own drumming 
log. Now Kagax was eager to make up for lost time ; 
for all time is lost to Kagax that is not spent in kill- 
ing. That is why he runs night and day, and barely 



Kagax the Bloodthirsty . 43 

tastes the blood of his victims, and sleeps only an 
hour or two of cat naps at a time — just long enough 
to gather energy for more evil doing. 

As he stretched himself again, a sudden barking 
and snickering came from a giant spruce on the hill 
just above. Meeko, the red squirrel, had discovered 
a new jay's nest, and was making a sensation over 
it, as he does over everything that he has not hap- 
pened to see before. Had he known who was listen- 
ing, he would have risked his neck in a headlong 
rush for safety ; for all the wild things fear Kagax as 
they fear death. But no wild thing ever knows till 
too late that a weasel is near. 

Kagax listened a moment, a ferocious grin on his 
pointed face ; then he stole towards the sound. " I 
intended to kill those young hares first," he thought, 
" but this fool squirrel will stretch my legs better, and 
point my nose, and get the sleep out of me — There 
he is, in the big spruce ! " 

Kagax had not seen the squirrel ; but that did not 
matter ; he can locate a victim better with his nose or 
ears than he can with his eyes. The moment he was 
sure of the place, he rushed forward without caution. 
Meeko was in the midst of a prolonged snicker at the 
scolding jays, when he heard a scratch on the bark 
below, turned, looked down, and fled with a cry of 



44 Wilderness Ways. 

terror. Kagax was already halfway up the tree, the 
red fire blazing in his eyes. 

The squirrel rushed to the end of a branch, jumped 
to a smaller spruce, ran that up to the top; then, 
because his fright had made him forget the tree paths 
that ordinarily he knew very well, he sprang out and 
down to the ground, a clear fifty feet, breaking his 
fall by catching and holding for an instant a swaying 
fir tip on the way. Then he rushed pell-mell over 
logs and rocks, and through the underbrush to a 
maple, and from that across a dozen trees to another 
giant spruce, where he ran up and down desperately 
over half the branches, crossing and crisscrossing his 
trail, and dropped panting at last into a little crevice 
under a broken limb. There he crouched into the 
smallest possible space and watched, with an awful 
fear in his eyes, the rough trunk below. 

Far behind him came Kagax, grim, relentless, silent 
as death. He paid no attention to scratching claws 
nor swaying branches, never looking for the jerking 
red tip of Meeko's tail, nor listening for the loud 
thump of his feet when he struck the ground. A 
pair of brave little flycatchers saw the chase and 
rushed at the common enemy, striking him with 
their beaks, and raising an outcry that brought a 
score of frightened, clamoring birds to the scene. 



Kagax the Bloodthirsty . 45 

But Kagax never heeded. His whole being seemed 
to be concentrated in the point of his nose. He 
followed like a bloodhound *to the top of the second 
spruce, sniffed here and there till he caught the scent 
of Meeko's passage through the air, ran to the end 
of a branch in the same direction and leaped to the 
ground, landing not ten feet from the spot where 
the squirrel had struck a moment before. There he 
picked up the trail, followed over logs and rocks to 
the maple, up to the third branch, and across fifty 
yards of intervening branches to the giant spruce 
where his victim sat half paralyzed, watching from 
his crevice. 

Here Kagax was more deliberate. Left and right, 
up and down he went with deadly patience, from the 
lowest branch to the top, a hundred feet above, follow- 
ing every cross and winding of the trail. A dozen 
times he stopped, went back, picked up the fresher 
trail, and went on again. A dozen times he passed 
within a few feet of his victim, smelling him strongly, 
but scorning to use his eyes till his nose had done its 
perfect work. So he came to the last turn, followed 
the last branch, his nose to the bark, straight to 
the crevice under the broken branch, where Meeko 
crouched shivering, knowing it was all over. 

There was a cry, that no one heeded in the woods ; 



46 Wilderness Ways. 

there was a flash of sharp teeth, and the squirrel fell, 
striking the ground with a heavy thump. Kagax ran 
down the trunk, sniffed an instant at the body with- 
out touching it, and darted away to the form among 
the ferns. He had passed it at daylight when he 
was too heavy for killing. 

Halfway to the lake, he stopped; a thrilling song 
from a dead spruce top bubbled out over the darken- 
ing woods. When a hermit thrush sings like that, 
his nest is somewhere just below. Kagax began 
twisting in and out like a snake among the bushes, 
till a stir in a tangle of raspberry vines, which no ears 
but his or an owl's would ever notice, made him 
shrink close to the ground and look up. The red 
fire blazed in his eyes again; for there was Mother 
Thrush just settling onto her nest, not five feet from 
his head. 

To climb the raspberry vines without shaking them, 
and so alarming the bird, was out of the question; 
but there was a fire-blasted tree just behind. Kagax 
climbed it stealthily on the side away from the bird, 
crept to a branch over the nest, and leaped down. 
Mother Thrush was preening herself sleepily, feeling 
the grateful warmth of her eggs and listening to 
the wonderful song overhead, when the blow came. 
Before she knew what it was, the sharp teeth had met 



Kagax the Bloodthirsty . 47 

in her brain. The pretty nest would never again wait 
for a brooding mother in the twilight. 

All the while the wonderful song went on ; for the 
hermit thrush, pouring his soul out, far above on the 
dead spruce top, heard not a sound of the tragedy 
below. 

Kagax flung the warm body aside savagely, bit 
through the ends of the three eggs, wishing they were 
young thrushes, and leaped to the ground. There he 
just tasted the brain of his victim to whet his appetite, 
listened a moment, crouching among the dead leaves, 
to the melody overhead, wishing it were darker, so 
that the hermit would come down and he could end 
his wicked work. Then he glided away to the young 
hares. 

There were five of them in the form, hidden among 
the coarse brakes of a little opening. Kagax went 
straight to the spot. A weasel never forgets. He 
killed them all, one after another, slowly, deliberately, 
by a single bite through the spine, tasting only the 
blood of the last one. Then he wriggled down 
among the warm bodies and waited, his nose to the 
path by which Mother Hare had gone away. He 
knew well she would soon be coming back. 

Presently he heard her, put-a-put, put-a-put, hop- 
ping along the path, with a waving line of ferns to 



48 Wilderness Ways. 

show just where she was. Kagax wriggled lower 
among his helpless victims ; his eyes blazed red again, 
so red that Mother Hare saw them and stopped short. 
Then Kagax sat up straight among the dead babies 
and screeched in her face. 

The poor creature never moved a step; she only 
crouched low before her own door and began to 
shiver violently. Kagax ran up to her; raised himself 
on his hind legs so as to place his fore paws on her 
neck ; chose his favorite spot behind the ears, and bit. 
The hare straightened out, the quivering ceased. A 
tiny drop of blood followed the sharp teeth on either 
side. Kagax licked it greedily and hurried away, 
afraid to spoil his hunt by drinking. 

But he had scarcely entered the woods, running 
heedlessly, when the moss by a great stone stirred 
with a swift motion. There was a squeak of fright as 
Kagax jumped forward like lightning- — but too late. 
Tookhees, the timid little wood mouse, who was dig- 
ging under the moss for twin-flower roots to feed his 
little ones, had heard the enemy coming, and dove 
headlong into his hole, just in time to escape the snap 
of Kagax's teeth. 

That angered the fiery little weasel like poking a 
stick at him. To be caught napping, or to be heard 
running through the woods, is more than he can pos- 



Kagax the Bloodthirsty . 49 

sibly stand. His eyes fairly snapped as he began dig- 
ging furiously. Below, he could hear a chorus of 
faint squeaks, the clamor of young wood mice for their 
supper. But a few inches down, and the hole doubled 
under a round stone, then vanished between two 
roots close together. Try as he would, Kagax could 
only wear his claws out, without making any progress. 
He tried to force his shoulders through ; for a weasel 
thinks he can go anywhere. But the hole was too 
small. Kagax cried out in rage and took up the trail. 
A dozen times he ran it from the hole to the torn 
moss, where Tookhees had been digging roots, and 
back again; then, sure that all the wood mice were 
inside, he tried to tear his way between the obstinate 
roots. As well try to claw down the tree itself. 

All the while Tookhees, who always has just such 
a turn in his tunnel, and who knows perfectly when 
he is safe, crouched just below the roots, looking up 
with steady little eyes, like two black beads, at his 
savage pursuer, and listening in a kind of dumb 
terror to his snarls of rage. 

Kagax gave it up at last and took to running in 
circles. Wider and wider he went, running swift and 
silent, his nose to the ground, seeking other mice on 
whom to wreak his vengeance. Suddenly he struck 
a fresh trail and ran it straight to the clearing where 



50 Wilderness Ways. 

a foolish field mouse had built a nest in a tangle of 
dry brakes. Kagax caught and killed the mother as 
she rushed out in alarm. Then he tore the nest open 
and killed all the little ones. He tasted the blood 
of one and went on again. 

The failure to catch the wood mouse still rankled 
in his head and kept his eyes bright red. Suddenly 
he turned from his course along the lake shore ; he 
began to climb the ridge. Up and up he went, cross- 
ing a dozen trails that ordinarily he would have fol- 
lowed, till he came to where a dead tree had fallen 
and lodged against a big spruce, near the summit. 
There he crouched in the underbrush and waited. 

Up near the top of the dead tree, a pair of pine 
martens had made their den in the hollow trunk, and 
reared a family of young martens that drew Kagax's 
evil thoughts like a magnet. The marten belongs to 
the weasel's own family; therefore, as a choice bit of 
revenge, Kagax would rather kill him than anything 
else. A score of times he had crouched in this same 
place and waited for his chance. But the marten is 
larger and stronger every way than the weasel, and, 
though shyer, almost as savage in a fight. And 
Kagax was afraid. 

But to-night Kagax was in a more vicious mood 
than ever before ; and a weasel's temper is always the 



Kagax the Bloodthirsty. 51 

most vicious thing in the woods. • He stole forward 
at last and put his nose to the foot of the leaning tree. 
Two fresh trails went out ; none came back. Kagax 
followed them far enough to be sure that both martens 
were away hunting ; then he turned and ran like a 
flash up the incline and into the den. 

In a moment he came out, licking his chops greedily. 
Inside, the young martens lay just as they had been 
left by the mother; only they began to grow very 
cold. Kagax ran to the great spruce, along a branch 
into another tree ; then to the ground by a dizzy jump. 
There he ran swiftly for a good half hour in a long 
diagonal down towards the lake, crisscrossing his trail 
here and there as he ran. 

Once more his night's hunting began, with greater 
zeal than before. He was hungry now; his nose 
grew T keen as a brier for every trail. A faint smell 
stopped him, so faint that the keenest-nosed dog or 
fox would have passed without turning, the smell of 
a brooding partridge on her eggs. There she was, 
among the roots of a pine, sitting close and blend- 
ing perfectly with the roots and the brown needles. 
Kagax moved like a shadow ; his nose found the bird ; 
before she could spring he was on her back, and his 
teeth had done their evil work. Once more he tasted 
the fresh brains with keen relish. He broke all the 



52 Wilderness Ways. 

eggs, so that none else might profit by his hunting, 
and went on again. 

On some moist ground, under a hemlock, he came 
upon the fresh trail of a wandering hare — no simple, 
unsuspecting mother, coming back to her babies, but 
a big, strong, suspicious fellow, who knew how to 
make a run for his life. Kagax was still fresh and 
eager; here was game that would stretch his muscles. 
The red lust of killing flamed into his eyes as he 
jumped away on the trail. 

Soon, by the long distances between tracks, he 
knew that the hare was startled. The scent was 
fresher now, so fresh that he could follow it in the 
air, without putting his nose to the ground. 

Suddenly a great commotion sounded among the 
bushes just ahead, where a moment before all was 
still. The hare had been lying there, watching his 
back track to see what was following. When he saw 
the red eyes of Kagax, he darted away wildly. A few 
hundred yards, and the foolish hare, who could run 
far faster than his pursuer, dropped in the bushes 
again to watch and see if the weasel was still after 
him. 

Kagax was following, swiftly, silently. Again the 
hare bounded away, only to stop and scare himself 
into fits by watching his own trail till the red eyes 



Kagax the Bloodthirsty . 53 

of the weasel blazed into view. So it went on for 
a half hour, through brush and brake and swamp, 
till the hare had lost all his* wits and began to run 
wildly in small circles. Then Kagax turned, ran the 
back track a little way, and crouched flat on the 
ground. 

In a moment the hare came tearing along on his 
own trail — straight towards the yellow-brown ball 
under a fern tip. Kagax waited till he was almost 
run over; then he sprang up and screeched. That 
ended the chase. The hare just dropped on his fore 
paws. Kagax jumped for his head ; his teeth met ; 
the hunger began to gnaw, and he drank his fill 
greedily. 

For a time the madness of the chase seemed to be 
in the blood he drank. Keener than ever to kill, he 
darted away on a fresh trail. But soon his feast 
began to tell ; his feet grew heavy. Angry at him- 
self, he lay down to sleep their weight away. 

Far behind him, under the pine by the partridge's 
nest, a long dark shadow seemed to glide over the 
ground. A pointed nose touched the leaves here and 
there ; over the nose a pair of fierce little eyes glowed 
deep red as Kagax's own. So the shadow came to 
the partridge's nest, passed over it, minding not the 
scent of broken eggs nor of the dead bird, but only 



54 Wilderness Ways. 

the scent of the weasel, and vanished into the under- 
brush on the trail. 

Kagax woke with a start and ran on. A big bull- 
frog croaked down on the shore. Kagax stalked and 
killed him, leaving his carcass untouched among the 
lily pads. A dead pine in a thicket attracted his 
suspicion. He climbed it swiftly, found a fresh round 
hole, and tumbled in upon a mother bird and a family 
of young woodpeckers. He killed them all, tasting 
the brains again, and hunted the tree over for the 
father bird, the great black logcock that makes the 
wilderness ring with his tattoo. But the logcock 
heard claws on the bark and flew to another tree, 
making a great commotion in the darkness as he 
blundered along, but not knowing what it was that 
had startled him. 

So the night wore on, with Kagax killing in every 
thicket, yet never satisfied with killing. He thought 
longingly of the hard winter, when game was scarce, 
and he had made his way out over the snow to the 
settlement, and lived among the chicken coops. 
"Twenty big hens in one roost — that was killing," 
snarled Kagax savagely, as he strangled two young 
herons in their nest, while the mother bird went on 
with her frogging, not ten yards away among the lily 
pads, and never heard a rustle. 



Kagax the Bloodthirsty . 55 

Toward morning he turned homeward, making his 
way back in a circle along the top of the ridge where 
his den was, and killing as* he went. He had tasted 
too much; his feet grew heavier than they had ever 
been before. He thought angrily that he would have 
to sleep another whole day. And to sleep a whole 
day, while the wilderness was just beginning to swarm 
with life, filled Kagax with snarling rage. 

A mother hare darted away from her form as the 
weasel's wicked eyes looked in upon her. Kagax 
killed the little ones and had started after the mother, 
when a shiver passed over him and he turned back 
to listen. He had been moving more slowly of late ; 
several times he had looked behind him with the feel- 
ing that he was followed. He stole back to the hare's 
form and lay hidden, watching his back track. He 
shivered again. " If it were not stronger than I, it 
would not follow my trail," thought Kagax. The fear 
of a hunted thing came upon him. He remembered 
the marten's den, the strangled young ones, the two 
trails that left the leaning tree. " They must have 
turned back long ago," thought Kagax, and darted 
away. His back was cold now, cold as ice. 

But his feet grew very heavy ere he reached his 
den. A faint light began to show over the mountain 
across the lake, Killooleet, the white-throated spar- 



56 Wilderness Ways, 

row, saw it, and his clear morning song tinkled out 
of the dark underbrush. Kagax's eyes glowed red 
again ; he stole toward the sound for a last kill. 
Young sparrows' brains are a dainty dish ; he would 
eat his fill, since he must sleep all day. He found 
the nest ; he had placed his fore paws against the 
tree that held it, when he dropped suddenly; the 
shivers began to course all over him. Just below, 
from a stub in a dark thicket, a deep Whooo-hoo-hoo ! 
rolled out over the startled woods. 

It was Kookooskoos, the great horned owl, who 
generally hunts only in the evening twilight, but who, 
with growing young ones to feed, sometimes uses the 
morning twilight as well. Kagax lay still as a stone. 
Over him the sparrows, knowing the danger, crouched 
low in their nest, not daring to move a claw lest the 
owl should hear. 

Behind him the same shadow that had passed over 
the partridge's nest looked into the hare's form with 
fierce red eyes. It followed Kagax's trail over that of 
the mother hare, turned back, sniffed the earth, and 
came hurrying silently along the ridge. 

Kagax crept stealthily out of the thicket. He had 
an awful fear now of his feet ; for, heavy with the 
blood he had eaten, they would rustle the leaves, or 
scratch on the stones, that all night long they had 



Kagax the Bloodthirsty . 57 

glided over in silence. He was near his den now. 
He could see the old pine that lightning had blasted, 
towering against the sky over the dark spruces. 

Again the deep Whooo-hoo-hoo ! rolled over the hill- 
side. To Kagax, who gloats over his killing except 
when he is afraid, it became an awful accusation. 
" Who has killed where he cannot eat ? who strangled 
a brooding bird ? who murdered his own kin ? " came 
thundering through the woods. Kagax darted for his 
den. His hind feet struck a rotten twig that they 
should have cleared ; it broke with a sharp snap. 
In an instant a huge shadow swept down from the 
stub and hovered over the sound. Two fierce yellow 
eyes looked in upon Kagax, crouching and trying to 
hide under a fir tip. 

Kagax whirled when the eyes found him and two 
sets of strong curved claws dropped down from the 
shadow. With a savage snarl he sprang up, and his 
teeth met; but no blood followed the bite, only a 
flutter of soft brown feathers. Then one set of sharp 
claws gripped his head ; another set met deep in his 
back. Kagax was jerked swiftly into the air, and 
his evil doing was ended forever. 

There was a faint rustle in the thicket as the 
shadow of Kookooskoos swept away to his nest. 
The long lithe form of a pine marten glided straight 



5 3 Wilderness Ways. 

to the fir tip, where Kagax had been a moment before. 
His movements were quick, nervous, silent ; his eyes 
showed like two drops of blood over his twitching 
nostrils. He circled swiftly about the end of the lost 
trail. His nose touched a brown feather, another, 
and he glided back to the fir tip. A drop of blood 
was soaking slowly into a dead leaf. The marten 
thrust his nose into it. One long sniff, while his 
eyes blazed; then he raised his head, cried out once 
savagely, and glided away on the back track. 



IV. KOOKOOSKOOS, WHO CATCHES 
THE WRONG RAT. 

OOKOOSKOOS is the big brown 
owl, the Bubo Virginianus, or 
1 1 Great Horned Owl of the books. 
H But his Indian name is best. 
Almost any night in autumn, 
if you leave" the town and go 
out towards the big woods, you 
can hear him calling it, Koo-koo- 
skoos, koooo, kooo, down in the 
swamp. 

Kookooskoos is always catch- 
ing the wrong rat. The reason 
is that he is a great hunter, and 
thinks that every furry thing 
which moves must be game ; and 
so he is like the fool sportsman 
who shoots at a sound, or a motion in the bushes, 
before finding out . what makes it. Sometimes the 
rat turns out to be a skunk, or a weasel ; sometimes 
your pet cat ; and, once in a lifetime, it is your own fur 

59 




60 Wilderness Ways. 

cap, or even your head ; and then you feel the weight 
and the edge of Kookooskoos' claws. But he never 
learns wisdom by mistakes ; for, spite of his grave 
appearance, he is excitable as a Frenchman ; and so, 
whenever anything stirs in the bushes and a bit of 
fur appears, he cries out to himself, A rat, Kookoo ! 
a rabbit! and swoops on the instant. 

Rats and rabbits are his favorite food, by the way, 
and he never lets a chance go by of taking them into 
camp. I think I never climbed to his nest without 
finding plenty of the fur of both animals to tell of 
his skill in hunting. 

One evening in the twilight, as I came home from 
hunting in the big woods, I heard the sound of deer 
feeding just ahead. I stole forward to the edge of a 
thicket and stood there motionless, looking and listen- 
ing intently. My cap was in my pocket, and only my 
head appeared above the low firs that sheltered me. 
Suddenly, without noise or warning of any kind, I 
received a sharp blow on the head from behind, as if 
some one had struck me with a thorny stick. I turned 
quickly, surprised and a good bit startled; for I thought 
myself utterly alone in the woods — and I was. 
There was nobody there. Not a sound, not a motion 
broke the twilight stillness. Something trickled on 
my neck ; I put up my hand, to find my hair already 



Kookooskoos and the Wrong Rat. 61 

wet with blood. More startled than ever, I sprang 
through the thicket, looking, listening everywhere for 
sight or sound of my enemy! Still no creature bigger 
than a wood mouse ; no movement save that of nod- 
ding fir tips ; no sound but the thumping of my own 
heart, and, far behind me, a sudden rush and a bump 
or two as the frightened deer broke away ; then per- 
fect stillness again, as if nothing had ever lived in the 
thickets. 

I was little more than a boy ; and I went home that 
night more puzzled and more frightened than I have 
ever been, before or since, in the woods. I ran into 
the doctor's office on my way. He found three cuts 
in my scalp, and below them two shorter ones, where 
pointed things seemed to have been driven through 
to the bone. He looked at me queerly when I told 
my story. Of course he did not believe me, and I 
made no effort to persuade him. Indeed, I scarcely 
believed myself. But for the blood which stained my 
handkerchief, and the throbbing pain in my head, 
I should have doubted the reality of the whole 
experience. 

That night I started up out of sleep, some time 
towards morning, and said before I was half awake: 
"It was an owl that hit you on the head — of course 
it was an owl ! " Then I remembered that, years 



62 Wilderness Ways. 

before, an older boy had a horned owl, which he had 
taken from a nest, and which he kept loose in a dark 
garret over the shed. None of us younger boys dared 
go up to the garret, for the owl was always hungry, 
and the moment a boy's head appeared through the 
scuttle the owl said Hoooo! and swooped for it. So 
we used to get acquainted with the big pet by push- 
ing in a dead rat, or a squirrel, or a chicken, on the 
end of a stick, and climbing in ourselves afterwards. 

As I write, the whole picture comes back to me 
again vividly ; the dark, cobwebby old garret, pierced 
here and there by a pencil of light, in which the motes 
were dancing ; the fierce bird down on the floor in the 
darkest corner, horns up, eyes gleaming, feathers all 
a-bristle till he looked big as a bushel basket in the 
dim light, standing on his game with one foot and 
tearing it savagely to pieces with the other, snapping 
his beak and gobbling up feathers, bones and all, in 
great hungry mouthfuls ; and, over the scuttle, two 
or three small boys staring in eager curiosity, but 
clinging to each other's coats fearfully, ready to tum- 
ble down the ladder with a yell at the first hostile 
demonstration. 

The next afternoon I was back in the big woods 
to investigate. Fifty feet behind the thicket where I 
had been struck was a tall dead stub overlooking a 



Kookooskoos and the Wrong Rat. 63 

little clearing. " That 's his watch tower," I thought. 
" While I was watching the deer, he was up there 
watching my head, and when it moved he swooped." 

I had no intention of giving him another flight at 
the same game, but hid my fur cap some distance out 
in the clearing, tied a long string to it, went back into 
the thicket with the other end of the string, and sat 
down to wait. A low Whooo-hoo-hoo ! came from across 
the valley to tell me I was not the only watcher in the 
woods. 

Towards dusk I noticed suddenly that the top of 
the old stub looked a bit peculiar, but it was some 
time before I made out a big owl sitting up there. I 
had no idea how long he had been there, nor whence 
he came. His back was towards me ; he sat up very 
straight and still, so as to make himself just a piece, the 
tip end, of the stub. As I watched, he hooted once 
and bent forward to listen. Then I pulled on my 
string. 

With the first rustle of a leaf he whirled and poised 
forward, in the intense attitude an eagle takes when he 
sights the prey. On the instant he had sighted the 
cap, wriggling in and out among the low bushes, and 
swooped for it like an arrow. Just as he dropped his 
legs to strike, I gave a sharp pull, and the cap jumped 
from under him. He missed his strike, but wheeled 



64 Wilderness Ways. 

like a fury and struck again. Another jerk, and again 
he missed. Then he was at the thicket where I stood ; 
his fierce yellow eyes glared straight into mine for a 
startled instant, and he brushed me with his wings as 
he sailed away into the shadow of the spruces. 

Small doubt now that I had seen my assailant of 
the night before; for an owl has regular hunting 
grounds, and uses the same watch towers night after 
night. He had seen my head in the thicket, and 
struck at the first movement. Perceiving his mis- 
take, he kept straight on over my head ; so of course 
there was nothing in sight when I turned. As an 
owl's flight is perfectly noiseless (the wing feathers 
are wonderfully soft, and all the laminae are drawn 
out into hair points, so that the wings never whirr nor 
rustle like other birds') I had heard nothing, though 
he passed close enough to strike, and I was listening 
intently. And so another mystery of the woods was 
made plain by a little watching. 

Years afterwards, the knowledge gained stood me in 
good stead in clearing up another mystery. It was 
in a lumber camp — always a superstitious place — in 
the heart of a Canada forest. I had followed a wander- 
ing herd of caribou too far one day, and late in the 
afternoon found myself alone at a river, some twenty 
miles from my camp, on the edge of the barren grounds. 



Kookooskoos and the Wrong Rat. 65 

Somewhere above me I knew that a crew of lumber- 
men were at work; so I headed up river to find their 
camp, if possible, and avoid sleeping out in the snow 
and bitter cold. It was long after dark, and the moon 
was flooding forest and river with a wonderful light, 
when I at last caught sight of the camp. The click 
of my snowshoes brought a dozen big men to the 
door. At that moment I felt rather than saw that 
they seemed troubled and alarmed at seeing me alone ; 
but I was too tired to notice, and no words save those 
of welcome were spoken until I had eaten heartily. 
Then, as I started out for another look at the wild 
beauty of the place under the moonlight, a lumber- 
man followed and touched me on the shoulder. 

" Best not go far from camp alone, sir. 'T is n't 
above safe hereabouts," he said in a low voice. I 
noticed that he glanced back over his shoulder as 
he spoke. 

" But why ? " I objected. " There 's nothing in 
these woods to be afraid of." 

" Come back to camp and I '11 tell you. It 's warmer 
there," he said. And I followed to hear a strange 
story, — how "Andy there" was sitting on a stump, 
smoking his pipe in the twilight, when he was struck 
and cut on the head from behind ; and when he sprang 
up to look, there was nothing there, nor any track save 



66 Wilderness Ways. 

his own in the snow. The next night Gillie's fur cap 
had been snatched from his head, and when he turned 
there was nobody in sight; and when he burst into 
camp, with all his wits frightened out of him, he could 
scarcely speak, and his face was deathly white. Other 
uncanny things had happened since, in the same way, 
and coupled with a bad accident on the river, which 
the men thought was an omen, they had put the camp 
into such a state of superstitious fear that no one 
ventured alone out of doors after nightfall. 

I thought of Kookooskoos and my own head, but 
said nothing. They would only have resented the 
suggestion. 

Next day I found my caribou, and returned to the 
lumber camp before sunset. At twilight there was 
Kookooskoos, an enormous fellow, looking like the 
end of a big spruce stub, keeping sharp watch over 
the clearing, and fortunately behind the camp where 
he could not see the door. I called the men and set 
them crouching in the snow under the low eaves. — 
" Stay there a minute and I '11 show you the ghost." 
That was all I told them. 

Taking the skin of a hare which I had shot that 
day, I hoisted it cautiously on a stick, the lumbermen 
watching curiously, A slight scratch of the stick, a 
movement of the fur along the' splits, then a great 



Kookooskoos and the Wrong Rat. 67 



dark shadow shot over our heads. It struck the stick 
sharply and swept on and up into the spruces across 
the clearing, taking Bunny's skin with it. 

Then one big lumberman, who saw the point, 
jumped up with a yell and danced a jig in the snow, 
like a schoolboy. There was no need of further dem- 
onstration with a cap; and nobody volunteered his 
head for a final experiment ; but all remembered see- 
ing the owl on his nightly watch, and knew something 
of his swooping habits. Of course some were incred- 
ulous at first, and had a dozen questions and objec- 
tions when we were in camp. No one likes to have a 
good ghost story spoiled ; and, besides, where super- 
stition is, there the marvelous is most easily believed. 
It is only the simple truth that is doubted. So I 
spent half the night in convincing them that they had 
been brought up in the woods to be scared by an owl. 

Poor Kookooskoos! they shot him next night on 
his watch tower, and nailed him to the camp door 
as a warning. 

I discovered another curious thing about Kookoos- 
koos that night when I watched to find out what had 
struck me. I found out why he hoots. Sometimes, 
if he is a young owl, he hoots for practice, or to learn 
how ; and then he makes an awful noise of it, a rasp- 
ing screech, before his voice deepens. And if you are 



68 Wilderness Ways. 

camping near and are new to the woods, the chances 
are that you lie awake and shiver; for there is no 
other sound like it in the wilderness. Sometimes, 
when you climb to his nest, he has a terrifying hoo-hoo- 
hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo, running up and down a deep guttural 
scale, like a fiendish laugh, accompanied by a vicious 
snapping of the beak. And if you are a small boy, 
and it is towards twilight, you climb down the tree 
quick and let his nest alone. But the regular whooo- 
hoo-hoo, whooo-hoo, always five notes, with the second 
two very short, is a hunting call, and he uses it to 
alarm the game. That is queer hunting ; but his 
ears account for it. 

If you separate the feathers on Kookooskoos' head, 
you will find an enormous ear-opening running from 
above his eye halfway round his face. And the ear 
within is so marvelously sensitive that it can hear the 
rustle of a rat in the grass, or the scrape of a spar- 
row's toes on a branch fifty feet away. So he sits on 
his watch tower, so still that he is never noticed, and 
as twilight comes on, when he can see best, he hoots 
suddenly and listens. The sound has a muffled 
quality which makes it hard to locate, and it fright- 
ens every bird and small animal within hearing; for 
all know Kookooskoos, and how fierce he is. As the 
terrifying sound rolls out of the air so near them, fur 



Kookooskoos and the Wrong Rat. 69 

and feathers shiver with fright. A rabbit stirs in his 
form ; a partridge shakes on his branch ; the mink 
stops hunting frogs at the brook ; the skunk takes his 
nose out of the hole where he is eating sarsaparilla 
roots. A leaf stirs, a toe scrapes, and instantly Koo- 
kooskoos is there. His fierce eyes glare in ; his great 
claws drop ; one grip, and it 's all over. For the very 
sight of him scares the little creatures so, that there is 
no life left in them to cry out or to run away. 

A nest which I found a few years ago shows how 
well this kind of hunting succeeds. It was in a 
gloomy evergreen swamp, in a big tree, some eighty 
feet from the ground. I found it by a pile of pellets 
of hair and feathers at the foot of the tree; for the 
owl devours every part of his game, and after diges- 
tion is complete, feathers, bones, and hair are dis- 
gorged in small balls, like so many sparrow heads. 
When I looked up, there at the top was a huge mass 
of sticks, which had been added to year after year till 
it was nearly three feet across, and half as thick. 
Kookooskoos was not there. He had heard me 
coming and slipped away silently. 

Wishing to be sure the nest was occupied before 
trying the hard climb, I went away as far as I could 
see the nest and hid in a thicket. Presently a very 
large owl came back and stood by the nest. Soon 



Jo Wilderness Ways. 

after, a smaller bird, the male, glided up beside her. 
Then I came on cautiously, watching to see what 
they would do. 

At the first crack of a twig both birds started for- 
ward ; the male slipped away ; the female dropped 
below the nest, and stood behind a limb, just her face 
peering through a crotch in my direction. Had I not 
known she was there, I might have looked the tree 
over twenty times without finding her. And there 
she stayed hidden till I was halfway up the tree. 

When I peered at last over the edge of the big 
nest, after a desperately hard climb, there was a 
bundle of dark gray down in a little hollow in the 
middle. It touched me at the time that the little 
ones rested on a feather bed pulled from the mother 
bird's own breast. I brushed the down with my 
fingers. Instantly two heads came up, fuzzy gray 
heads, with black pointed beaks, and beautiful hazel 
eyes, and a funny long pin-feather over each ear, 
which made them look like little wise old clerks 
just waked up. When I touched them again they 
staggered up and opened their mouths, — enormous 
mouths for such little fellows ; then, seeing that I 
was an intruder, they tried to bristle their few pin- 
feathers and snap their beaks. 

They were fat as two aldermen ; and no wonder. 



Kookooskoos and the Wrong Rat. yi 

Placed around the edge of the big nest were a red 
squirrel, a rat, a chicken, a few frogs' legs, and a rab- 
bit. Fine fare that, at eighty feet from the ground. 
Kookooskoos had had good hunting. All the game 
was partly eaten, showing I had disturbed their din- 
ner; and only the hinder parts were left, showing 
that owls like the head and brains best. I left them 
undisturbed and came away; for I wanted to watch 
the young grow — which they did marvelously, and 
were presently learning to hoot. But I have been 
less merciful to the great owls ever since, thinking 
of the enormous destruction of game represented in 
raising two or three such young savages, year after 
year, in the same swamp. 

Once, at twilight, I shot a big owl that was sitting 
on a limb facing me, with what appeared to be an 
enormously long tail hanging below the limb. The 
tail turned out to be a large mink, just killed, with a 
beautiful skin that put five dollars into a boy's locker. 
Another time I shot one that sailed over me; when 
he came down, there was a ruffed grouse, still living, 
in his claws. Another time I could not touch one 
that I had killed for the overpowering odor which 
was in his feathers, showing that Mephitis, the skunk, 
never loses his head when attacked. But Kookoos- 
koos, like the fox, cares little for such weapons, and 



72 Wilderness Ways. 

in the spring, when game is scarce, swoops for and 
kills a skunk wherever he finds him prowling away 
from his den in the twilight. 

The most savage bit of his hunting that I ever saw 
was one dark winter afternoon, on the edge of some 
thick woods. I was watching a cat, a half-wild crea- 
ture, that was watching a red squirrel making a great 
fuss over some nuts which he had hidden, and which 
he claimed somebody had stolen. Somewhere behind 
us, Kookooskoos was watching from a pine tree. 
The squirrel was chattering in the midst of a whirl- 
wind of leaves and empty shells which he had thrown 
out on the snow from under the wall ; behind him the 
cat, creeping nearer and nearer, had crouched with 
blazing eyes and quivering muscles, her whole atten- 
tion fixed on the spring, when broad wings shot 
silently over my hiding place and fell like a shadow 
on the cat. One set of strong claws gripped her 
behind the ears ; the others were fastened like a vise 
in the spine. Generally one such grip is enough; 
but the cat was strong, and at the first touch sprang 
away. In a moment the owl was after her, floating, 
hovering above, till the right moment came, when he 
dropped and struck again. Then the cat whirled and 
fought like a fury. For a few moments there was a 
desperate battle, fur and feathers flying, the cat 



Kookooskoos and the Wrong Rat. 73 

screeching like mad, the owl silent as death. Then 
the great claws did their work. When I straightened 
up from my thicket, Kookooskoos was standing on 
his game, tearing off the flesh with his feet, and carry- 
ing it up to his mouth with the same movement, 
swallowing everything alike, as if famished. 

Over them the squirrel, which had whisked up a tree 
at the first alarm, was peeking with evil eyes over the 
edge of a limb, snickering at the blood-stained snow and 
the dead cat, scolding, barking, threatening the owl for 
having disturbed the search for his stolen walnuts. 

I caught that same owl soon after in a peculiar 
way. A farmer near by told me that an owl was 
taking his chickens regularly. Undoubtedly the bird 
had been driven southward by the severe winter, and 
had not taken up regular hunting grounds until he 
caught the cat. Then came the chickens. I set up 
a pole, on the top of which was nailed a bit of board 
for a platform. On the platform was fastened a small 
steel trap, and under it hung a dead chicken. The 
next morning there was Kookooskoos on the plat- 
form, one foot in the trap, at which he was pulling 
awkwardly. Owls, from their peculiar ways of hunt- 
ing, are prone to light on stubs and exposed branches ; 
and so Kookooskoos had used my pole as a watch 
tower before carrying off his game. 



74 Wilderness Ways. 

There is another way in which he is easily fooled. 
In the early spring, when he is mating, and again in 
the autumn, when the young birds are well fed and 
before they have learned much, you can bring him 
close up to you by imitating his hunting call. In the 
wilderness, where these birds are plenty, I have often 
had five or six about me at once. You have only to 
go well out beyond your tent, and sit down quietly, 
making yourself part of the place. Give the call a 
few times, and if there is a young bird near with a 
full stomach, he will answer, and presently come 
nearer. Soon he is in the tree over your head, and 
if you keep perfectly still he will set up a great hoot- 
ing that you have called him and now do not answer. 
Others are attracted by his calling ; they come in 
silently from all directions; the outcry is startling. 
The call is more nervous, more eerie, much more 
terrifying close at hand than when heard in the dis- 
tance. They sweep about like great dark shadows, 
hoo-hoo-hooing and frolicking in their own uncanny 
way; then go off to their separate watch towers and 
their hunting. But the chances are that you will be 
awakened with a start more than once in the night, 
as some inquisitive young owl comes back and gives 
the hunting call in the hope of rinding out what the 
first summons was all about. 



V. CHIGWOOLTZ THE FROG. 



WAS watching for a bear one day 
by an alder point, when Chigwooltz 
came swimming in from the lily 
pads in great curiosity to see what 
I was doing under the alders. He 
was an enormous frog, dull green 
with a yellowish vest — which 
showed that he was a male — but 
with the most brilliant ear drums I 
had ever seen. They fairly glowed 
with iridescent color, each in its 
ring of bright yellow. When I 
tried to catch him (very quietly, for the bear was 
somewhere just above on the ridge) in order to 
examine these drums, he dived under the canoe and 
watched. me from a distance. 

In front of me, in the shallow water along shore, 
four more large frogs were sunning themselves among 
the lily pads. I watched them carelessly while wait- 
ing for the bear. After an hour or two I noticed 
that three of these frogs changed their positions 

75 




J 6 Wilderness Ways. 

slightly, turning from time to time so as to warm the 
entire body at nature's fireplace. But the fourth was 
more deliberate and philosophical, thinking evidently 
that if he simply sat still long enough the sun would 
do the turning. When I came, about eleven o'clock, 
he was sitting on the shore by a green stone, his fore 
feet lapped by tiny ripples, the sun full on his back. 
For three hours, while I watched there, he never 
moved a muscle. Then the bear came, and I left 
him for more exciting things. 

Late in the afternoon I came back to get some of 
the big frogs for breakfast/ Chigwooltz, he with the 
ear drums, was the first to see me, and came pushing 
his way among the lily pads toward the canoe. But 
when I dangled a red ibis fly in front of him, he dived 
promptly, and I saw his head come up by a black 
root, where he sat, thinking himself invisible, and 
watched me. 

Chigwooltz the second, he of the green stone and 
the patient disposition, was still sitting in the same 
place. The sun had turned round ; it was now warm- 
ing his other side. His all-day sun bath surprised 
me so that I let him alone, to see how long he would 
sit still, and went fishing for other frogs. 

Two big ones showed their heads among the pads 
some twenty feet apart. Pushing up so as to make 



Chigwooltz the Frog. 77 

a triangle with my canoe, I dangled a red ibis impar- 
tially between them. For two or three long minutes 
neither moved so much as an eyelid. Then one 
seemed to wake suddenly from a trance, or to be 
touched by an electric wire, for he came scrambling 
in a desperate hurry over the lily pads. Swimming 
was too slow; he jumped fiercely out of water at the 
red challenge, making a great splash and commotion. 

Fishing for big frogs, by the way, is no tame sport. 
The red seems to excite them tremendously, and they 
take the fly like a black salmon. 

But the moment the first frog started, frog number 
two waked up and darted forward, making less noise 
but coming more swiftly. The first frog had jumped 
once for the fly and missed it, when the other leaped 
upon him savagely, and a fight began, while the ibis 
lay neglected on a lily pad. They pawed and bit 
each other fiercely for several minutes ; then the 
second frog, a little smaller than the other, got the 
grip he wanted and held it. He clasped his fore 
legs tight about his rival's neck and began to strangle 
him slowly. I knew well how strong Chigwooltz is 
in his forearms, and that his fightings and wrestlings 
are desperate affairs; but I did not know till then 
how savage he can be. He had gripped from behind 
by a clever dive, so as to use his weight when the right 



78 Wilderness Ways. 

moment came. Tighter and tighter he hugged ; the 
big frog's eyes seemed bursting from his head, and 
his mouth was forced slowly open. Then his savage 
opponent lunged upon him with his weight, and 
forced his head under water to finish him. 

The whole thing seemed scarcely more startling 
to the luckless big frog than to the watcher in the 
canoe. It was all so brutal, so deliberately planned ! 
The smaller frog, knowing that he was no match for 
the other in strength, had waited cunningly till he 
was all absorbed in the red fly, and then stole upon 
him, intending to finish him first and the little red 
thing afterwards. He would have done it too; for 
the big frog was at his last gasp, when I interfered 
and put them both in my net. 

Meanwhile a third frog had come walloping over 
the lily pads from somewhere out of sight, and 
grabbed the fly while the other two were fighting 
about it. It was he who first showed me a curious 
frog trick. When I lifted him from the water on the 
end of my line, he raised his hands above his head, as 
if he had been a man, and grasped the line, and tried 
to lift himself, hand over hand, so as to take the 
strain from his mouth. — And I could never catch 
another frog like that. 

Next morning, as I went to the early fishing, Chig- 



Chigwooltz the Frog. 79 

wooltz, the patient, sat by the same stone, his fore 
feet at the edge of the same bronze lily leaf. At 
noon he was still there ; in twenty-four hours at least 
he had not moved a muscle. 

At twilight I was following a bear along the shore. 
It was the restless season, when bears are moving 
constantly ; scarcely a twilight passed that I did not 
meet one or more on their wanderings. This one 
was heading for the upper end of the lake, traveling 
in the shallow water near shore ; and I was just 
behind him, stealing along in my canoe to see what 
queer thing he would do. He was in no hurry, as 
most other bears were, but went nosing along shore, 
acting much as a fat pig would in the same place. 
As he approached the alder point he stopped sud- 
denly, and twisted his head a bit, and set his ears, as a 
dog does that sees something very interesting. Then 
he began to steal forward. Could it be — I shot my 
canoe forward — yes, it was Chigwooltz, still sitting 
by the green stone, with his eye, like Bunsby's, on 
the coast of Greenland. In thirty-two hours, to my 
knowledge, he had not stirred. 

Mooween the bear crept nearer; he was crouching 
now like a cat, stealing along in the soft mud behind 
Chigwooltz so as to surprise him. I saw him raise 
one paw slowly, cautiously, high above his head. 



80 Wilderness Ways. 

Down it came, souse! sending up a shower of mud 
and water. And Chigwooltz the restful, who could 
sit still thirty-two hours without getting stiff in the 
joints, and then dodge the sweep of Mooween's paw, 
went splashing away hippety-ippety over the lily pads 
to some water grass, where he said K'tung ! and dis- 
appeared for good. 

A few days later Simmo and I moved camp to a 
grove of birches just above the alder point. From 
behind my tent an old game path led down to the bay 
where the big frogs lived. There were scores of them 
there ; the chorus at night, with its multitude of 
voices running from a whistling treble to deep, deep 
bass, was at times tremendous. It was here that I 
had the first good opportunity of watching frogs 
feeding. 

Chigwooltz, I found, is a perfect gourmand and a 
cannibal, eating, besides his regular diet of flies and 
beetles and water snails, young frogs, and crawfish, 
and turtles, and fish of every kind. But few have 
ever seen him at his hunting, for he is active only 
at night or on dark days. 

I used to watch them from the shore or from my 
canoe at twilight. Just outside the lily pads a shoal 
of minnows would be playing at the surface, or small 
trout would be rising freely for the night insects. 



Chigwooltz the Frog. 81 

Then, if you watched sharply, you would see gleam- 
ing points of light, the eyes of Chigwooltz, stealing 
out, with barely a ripple, to the edge of the pads. And 
then, when some big feeding trout drove the minnows 
or small fry close in, there would be a heavy plunge 
from the shadow of the pads; and you would hear 
Chigwooltz splashing if the fish were a larger one 
than he expected. 

That is why small frogs are so deadly afraid if you 
take them outside the fringe of lily pads. They 
know that big hungry trout feed in from the deeps, 
and that big frogs, savage cannibals every one, watch 
out from the shadowy fringe of water plants. If you 
drop a little frog there, in clear water, he will shoot 
in as fast as his frightened legs will drive him, swim- 
ming first on top to avoid fish, diving deep as he 
reaches the pads to avoid his hungry relatives ; and so 
in to shallow water and thick stems, where he can 
dodge about and the big frogs cannot follow. 

All sorts and conditions of frogs lived in that little 
bay. There was one inquisitive fellow, who always 
came out of the pads and swam as near as he could 
get whenever I appeared on the shore. Another 
would sit in his favorite spot, under a stranded log, 
and let me come as close as I would ; but the moment 
I dangled the red ibis fly in front of him, he would 



82 Wilderness Ways. 

disappear like a wink, and not show himself again. 
Another would follow the fly in a wild kangaroo 
dance over the lily pads, going round and round the 
canoe as if bewitched, and would do his best to climb 
in after the bit of color when I pulled it up slowly 
over the bark. He afforded me so much good fun 
that I could not eat him ; though I always stopped to 
give him another dance, whenever I went fishing for 
other frogs just like him. Further along shore lived 
another, a perfect savage, so wild that I could never 
catch him, which strangled or drowned two big frogs 
in a week, to my certain knowledge. And then, one 
night when I was trying to find my canoe which I 
had lost in the darkness, I came upon a frog migra- 
tion, dozens and dozens of them, all hopping briskly 
in the same direction. They had left the stream, 
driven by some strange instinct, just like rats or 
squirrels, and were going through the woods to the 
unknown destination that beckoned them so strongly 
that they could not but follow. 

The most curious and interesting bit of their 
strange life came out at night, when they were fas- 
cinated by my light. I used sometimes to set a 
candle on a piece of board for a float, and place it in 
the water close to shore, where the ripples would set 
it dancing gently. Then I would place a little screen 



Chigwooltz the Frog. S3 

of bark at the shore end of the float, and sit down 
behind it in darkness. 

Presently two points of light would begin to shine, 
then to scintillate, out among the lily pads, and Chig- 
wooltz would come stealing in, his eyes growing big- 
ger and brighter with wonder. He would place his 
forearms akimbo on the edge of the float, and lift 
himself up a bit, like a little old man, and stare stead- 
fastly at the light. And there he would stay as long 
as I let him, just staring and blinking. 

Soon two other points of light would come stealing 
in from the other side, and another frog would set his 
elbows on the float and stare hard across at the first- 
comer. And then two more shining points, and two 
more, till twelve or fifteen frogs were gathered about 
my beacon, as thick as they could find elbow room on 
the float, all staring and blinking like so many strange 
water owls come up from the bottom to debate 
weighty things, with a little flickering will-o'-the-wisp 
nodding grave assent in the midst of them. But 
never a word was spoken; the silence was perfect. 

Sometimes one, more fascinated or more curious 
than the others, would climb onto the float, and 
put his nose solemnly into the light. Then there 
would be a loud sizzle, a jump, and a splash; the 
candle would go out, and the wondering circle of 



84 Wilderness Ways. 

frogs scatter to the lily pads again, all swimming 
as if in a trance, dipping their heads under water 



to wash the light from their bewildered 



l & 



eyes. 



They were quite fearless, almost senseless, at such 
times. I would stretch out my hand from the shadow, 
pick up an unresisting frog that threatened too soon 
to climb onto the float, and examine him at leisure. 
But Chigwooltz is wedded to his idols; the moment 
I released him he would go, fast as his legs could 
carry him, to put his elbows on the float and stare at 
the light again. 

Among the frogs, and especially among the toads, 
as among most wild animals, certain individuals attach 
themselves strongly to man, drawn doubtless by some 
unknown but no less strongly felt attraction. It was 
so there in the wilderness. The first morning after 
our arrival at the birch grove I was down at the 
shore, preparing a trout for baking in the ashes, when 
Chigwooltz, of the ear drums, biggest of all the frogs, 
came from among the lily pads. He had lost all fear 
apparently ; he swam directly up to me, touching my 
hands with his nose, and even crawling out to my feet 
in the greatest curiosity. 

After that he took up his. abode near the foot of the 
game path. I had only to splash the water there with 
my finger when he would come from beside a green 



Chigwooltz the Frog. 85 

stone, or from under a log or the lily pads — for he 
had a dozen hiding places — and swim up to me to 
be fed, or petted, or to have his back scratched. 

He ate all sorts of things, insects, bread, beef, game 
and fish, either raw or cooked. I would attach a bit 
of meat to a string or straw, and wiggle it before him, 
to make it seem alive. The moment he saw it (he 
had a queer way sometimes of staring hard at a thing 
without seeing it) he would crouch and creep towards 
it, nearer and nearer, softly and more softly, like a cat 
stalking a chipmunk. Then there would be a red 
flash and the meat would be gone. The red flash 
was his tongue, which is attached at the outer end 
and folds back in his mouth. It is, moreover, large 
and sticky, and he can throw it out and back like 
lightning. All you see is the red flash of it, and his 
game is gone. 

One day, to try the effects of nicotine on a new 
subject, I took a bit of Simmo's black tobacco and 
gave it to Chigwooltz. He ate it thankfully, as he 
did everything else I gave him. In a little while he 
grew uneasy, sitting up and rubbing his belly with his 
fore paws. Presently he brought his stomach up into 
his mouth, turned it inside out to get rid of the 
tobacco, washed it thoroughly in the lake, swallowed 
it down again, and was ready for his bread and beef. 



S6 Wilderness Ways. 

A most convenient arrangement that ; and also a per- 
fectly unbiased opinion on a much debated subject. 

Chigwooltz, unlike many of my pets, was not in the 
least dependent on my bounty. Indeed, he was a 
remarkable hunter on his own account, and what he 
took from me he took as hospitality, not charity. 
One morning he came to me with the tail of a small 
trout sticking out of his mouth. The rest of the fish 
was below, being digested. Another day, towards 
twilight, I saw him resting on the lily pads, looking 
very full, with a suspicious-looking object curling out 
over his under lip. I wiggled my finger in the water, 
and he came from pure sociability, for he was beyond 
eating any more. The suspicious-looking object proved 
to be a bird's foot, and beside it was a pointed wing 
tip. That was too much for my curiosity. I opened 
his mouth and pulled out the bird with some diffi- 
culty, for Chigwooltz had been engaged some time in 
the act of swallowing his game and had it well down. 
It proved to be a full-grown male swallow, without 
a mark anywhere to show how he had come by his 
death. Chigwooltz looked at me reproachfully, but 
swallowed his game promptly the moment I had 
finished examining it. 

There was small doubt in my mind that he had 
caught his bird fairly, by a quick spring as the swallow 



Chigwooltz the Frog. 8y 

touched the water almost at his nose, near one of his 
numerous lurking places. Still it puzzled me a good 
deal till one early morning, when I saw him in broad 
daylight, do a much more difficult thing than snap- 
ping up a swallow. 

I was coming down the game path to the shore 
when a bird, a tree sparrow I thought, flew to the 
ground just ahead of me, and hopped to the water 
to drink. I watched him a moment curiously, then 
with intense interest as I saw a ripple steal out of the 
lily pads towards him. The ripple was Chigwooltz. 

The sparrow had finished drinking and was absorbed 
in a morning bath. Chigwooltz stole nearer and 
nearer, sinking himself till only his eyes showed 
above water. The ripple that flowed away on either 
side was gentle as that of a floating leaf. Then, just 
as the bird had sipped and lifted its head for a last 
swallow, Chigwooltz hurled himself out of water. 
One snap 'of his big mouth, and the sparrow was 
done for. 

An hour later, when I came down to my canoe, he 
was sitting low on the lily pads, winking sleepily now 
and then, with eight little sparrow's toes curling over 
the rim of his under lip, like a hornpout's whiskers. 



VI. CLOUD WINGS THE EAGLE. 




ERE he is again! here's Old White- 
head, robbing the fish-hawk." 

I started up from the little com- 
moosie beyond the fire, at Gillie's 
excited cry, and ran to join him on 
the shore. A glance out over Caribou 
Point to the big bay, where innumer- 
able whitefish were shoaling, showed 
me another chapter in. a long but 
always interesting story. Ismaquehs, 
the fish-hawk, had risen from the lake 
with a big fish, and was doing his best 
to get away to his nest, where his young 
ones were clamoring. Ovef him soared 
the eagle, still as fate and as sure, now 
dropping to flap a wing in Ismaquehs' 
face, now touching him with his great 
talons gently, as if to say, " Do you feel 
that, Ismaquehs? If I grip ©nee 'twill 
be the end of you and your fish together. And 
what will the little ones do then, up in the nest on 

88 



Cloud Wings the Ragle. 89 

the old pine? Better drop him peacefully; you can 
catch another. — Drop him ! I say." 

Up to that moment the <eagle had merely bothered 
the big hawk's flight, with a gentle reminder now and 
then that he meant no harm, but wanted the fish 
which he could not catch himself. Now there was a 
change, a flash of the king's temper. With a roar of 
wings he whirled round the hawk like a tempest, 
bringing up short and fierce, squarely in his line of 
flight. There he poised on dark broad wings, his 
yellow eyes -glaring fiercely into the shrinking soul 
of Ismaquehs, his talons drawn hard back for a deadly 
strike. And Simmo the Indian, who had run down 
to join me, muttered: "Cheplahgan mad now. Isma- 
quehs find-um out in a minute." 

But Ismaquehs knew just when to stop. With a cry 
of rage he dropped, or rather threw, his fish, hoping 
it would strike the water and be lost. On the instant 
the eagle wheeled out of the way and bent his head 
sharply. I had seen him fold wings and drop before, 
and had held my breath at the speed. But dropping 
was of no use now, for the fish fell faster. Instead 
he swooped downward, adding to the weight of his fall 
the push of his strong wings, glancing down like a 
bolt to catch the fish ere it struck the water, and rising 
again in a great curve — up and away steadily, evenly 



90 Wilderness Ways. 

as the king should fly, to his own little ones far away 
on the mountain. 

Weeks before, I had had my introduction to Old 
Whitehead, as Gillie called him, on the Madawaska. 
We were pushing up river on our way to the wilder- 
ness, when a great outcry and the bang-bang of a gun 
sounded just ahead. Dashing round a wooded bend, 
we came upon a man with a smoking gun, a boy up 
to his middle in the river, trying to get across, and, on 
the other side, a black sheep running about baaing 
at every jump. 

" He 's taken the lamb ; he 's taken the lamb ! " 
shouted the boy. Following the direction of his 
pointing finger, I saw Old Whitehead, a splendid 
bird, rising heavily above the tree-tops across the 
clearing. Reaching back almost instinctively, I 
clutched the heavy rifle which Gillie put into my 
hand and jumped out of the canoe ; for with a rifle 
one wants steady footing. It was a long shot, but not 
so very difficult ; Old Whitehead had got his bearings 
and was moving steadily, straight away. A second after 
the report of the rifle, we saw him hitch and swerve 
in the air ; then two white quills came floating down, 
and as he turned we saw the break in his broad white 
tail. And that was the mark that we knew him by 
ever afterwards. 



Cloud Wings the Ragle. 9 1 

That was nearly eighty miles by canoe from where 
we now stood, though scarcely ten in a straight line 
over the mountains ; for the rivers and lakes we were 
following doubled back almost to the starting point ; 
and the whole wild, splendid country was the eagle's 
hunting ground. Wherever I went I saw him, fol- 
lowing the rivers for stranded trout and salmon, or 
floating high in air where he could overlook two or 
three wilderness lakes, with as many honest fish- 
hawks catching their dinners. I had promised the 
curator of a museum that I would get him an eagle 
that summer, and so took to hunting the great bird 
diligently. But hunting was of little use, except to 
teach me many of his ways and habits ; for he seemed 
to have eyes and ears all over him ; and whether I 
crept like a snake through the woods, or floated like 
a wild duck in my canoe over the water, he always 
saw or heard me, and was off before I could get 
within shooting distance. 

Then I tried to trap him. I placed two large trout, 
with a steel trap between them, in a shallow spot on 
the river that I could watch from my camp on a bluff, 
half a mile below. Next day Gillie, who was more 
eager than I, set up a shout ; and running out I saw 
Old Whitehead standing in the shallows and flopping 
about the trap. We jumped into a canoe and pushed 



92 Wilderness Ways. 

up river in hot haste, singing in exultation that we 
had the fierce old bird at last. When we doubled 
the last point that hid the shallows, there was Old 
Whitehead, still tugging away at a fish, and splashing 
the water not thirty yards away. I shall not soon 
forget his attitude and expression as we shot round 
the point, his body erect and rigid, his wings half 
spread, his head thrust forward, eyelids drawn straight, 
and a strong fierce gleam of freedom and utter wild- 
ness in his bright eyes. So he stood, a magnificent 
creature, till we were almost upon him, — when he rose 
quietly, taking one of the trout. The other was 
already in his stomach. He was not in the trap at 
all, but had walked carefully round it. The splashing 
was made in tearing one fish to pieces with his claws, 
and freeing the other from a stake that held it. 

After that he would not go near the shallows ; for 
a new experience had come into his life, leaving its 
shadow dark behind it. He who was king of all he 
surveyed from the old blasted pine on the crag's top, 
who had always heretofore been the hunter, now 
knew what it meant to be hunted. And the fear of 
it was in his eyes, I think, and softened their fierce 
gleam when I looked into them again, weeks later, 
by his own nest on the mountain. 

Simmo entered also into our hunting, but without 



Cloud Wings the Ragle. 93 

enthusiasm or confidence. He had chased the same 
eagle before — all one summer, in fact, when a sports- 
man, whom he was guiding,* had offered him twenty 
dollars for the royal bird's skin. But Old White- 
head still wore it triumphantly; and Simmo proph- 
esied for him long life and a natural death. " No 
use hunt-um dat heagle," he said simply. " I try 
once an' can't get near him. He see everyt'ing ; and 
wot he don't see, he hear. 'Sides, he kin feel danger. 
Das why he build nest way off, long ways, O don' 
know where." This last with a wave of his arm to 
include the universe. Cheplahgan, Old Cloud Wings, 
he proudly called the bird that had defied him in a 
summer's hunting. 

At first I had hunted him like any other savage ; 
partly, of course, to get his skin for the curator; 
partly, perhaps, to save the settler's lambs over on the 
Madawaska; but chiefly just to kill him, to exult in 
his death flaps, and to rid the woods of a cruel tyrant. 
Gradually, however, a change came over me as I 
hunted ; I sought him less and less for his skin and 
his life, and more and more for himself, to know all 
about him. I used to watch him by the hour from 
my camp on the big lake, sailing quietly over Caribou 
Point, after he had eaten with his little ones, and 
was disposed to let Ismaquehs go on with his fishing 



94 Wilderness Ways. 

in peace. He would set his great wings to the breeze 
and sit like a kite in the wind, mounting steadily in 
an immense spiral, up and up, without the shadow 
of effort, till the eye grew dizzy in following. And I 
loved to watch him, so strong, so free, so sure of him- 
self — round and round, up and ever up, without 
hurry, without exertion; and every turn found the 
heavens nearer and the earth spread wider below. 
Now head and tail gleam silver white in the sun- 
shine; now he hangs motionless, a cross of jet that 
a lady might wear at her throat, against the clear, 
unfathomable blue of the June heavens — there ! he is 
lost in the blue, so high that I cannot see any more. 
But even as I turn away he plunges down into vision 
again, dropping with folded wings straight down like 
a plummet, faster and faster, larger and larger, through 
a terrifying rush of air, till I spring to my feet and 
catch the breath, as if I myself were falling. And 
just before he dashes himself to pieces he turns in 
the air, head downward, and half spreads his wings, 
and goes shooting, slanting down towards the lake, 
then up in a great curve to the tree-tops, where he can 
watch better what Kakagos, the rare woods-raven, is 
doing, and what game he is hunting. For that is 
what Cheplahgan came down in such a hurry to 
find out about 



Cloud Wings the Ragle. 95 

Again he would come in the early morning, sweeping 
up river as if he had already been a long day's journey, 
with the air of far-away and* far-to-go in his onward 
rush. And if I were at the trout pools, and very still, 
I would hear the strong silken rustle of his wings as 
he passed. At midday I would see him poised over 
the highest mountain-top northward, at an enormous 
altitude, where the imagination itself could not follow 
the splendid sweep of his vision ; and at evening he 
would cross the lake, moving westward into the sunset 
on tireless pinions — always strong, noble, magnificent 
in his power and loneliness, a perfect emblem of the 
great lonely magnificent wilderness. 

One day as I watched him, it swept over me sud- 
denly that forest and river would be incomplete with- 
out him. The thought of this came back to me, and 
spared him to the wilderness, on the last occasion 
when I went hunting for his life. 

That was just after we reached the big lake, where 
I saw him robbing the fish-hawk. After much search- 
ing and watching I found a great log by the outlet 
where Old Whitehead often perched. There was a 
big eddy hard by, on the edge of a shallow, and he used 
to sit on the log, waiting for fish to come out where 
he could wade in and get them. There was a sick- 
ness among the suckers that year (it comes regularly 



g6 Wilderness Ways. 

every few years, as among rabbits), and they would 
come struggling out of the deep water to rest on the 
sand, only to be caught by the minks and fish-hawks 
and bears and Old Whitehead, all of whom were 
waiting and hungry for fish. 

For several days I put a big bait of trout and white- 
fish on the edge of the shallows. The first two baits 
were put out late in the afternoon, and a bear got 
them both the next night. Then I put them out in 
the early morning, and before noon Cheplahgan had 
found them. He came straight as a string from his 
watch place over the mountain, miles away, causing 
me to wonder greatly what strange sixth sense guided 
him ; for sight and smell seemed equally out of the 
question. The next day he came again. Then I 
placed the best bait of all in the shallows, and hid 
in the dense underbrush near, with my gun. 

He came at last, after hours of waiting, dropping 
from above the tree-tops with a heavy rustling of 
pinions. And as he touched the old log, and spread 
his broad white tail, I saw and was proud of the gap 
which my bullet had made weeks before. He stood 
there a moment erect and splendid, head, neck, and 
tail a shining white; even the dark brown feathers 
of his body glinted in the bright sunshine. And he 
turned his head slowly from side to side, his keen 



Cloud Wings the Ragle. 97 

eyes flashing, as if he would say, " Behold, a king ! " to 
Chigwooltz the frog, and Tookhees the wood mouse, 
and to any other chance wild creature that might 
watch him from the underbrush at his unkingly act 
of feeding on dead fish. Then he hopped down — 
rather awkwardly, it must be confessed; for he is a 
creature of the upper deeps, who cannot bear to touch 
the earth — seized a fish, which he tore to pieces with 
his claws and ate greedily. Twice I tried to shoot 
him ; but the thought of the wilderness without him 
was upon me, and held me back. Then, too, it seemed 
so mean to pot him from ambush when he had come 
down to earth, where he was at a disadvantage; and 
when he clutched some of the larger fish in his talons, 
and rose swiftly and bore away westward, all desire to 
kill him was gone. There were little Cloud Wings, it 
seemed, which I must also find and watch. After 
that I hunted him more diligently than before, but 
without my gun. And a curious desire, which I 
could not account for, took possession of me: to 
touch this untamed, untouched creature of the clouds 
and mountains. 

Next day I did it. There were thick bushes grow- 
ing along one end of the old log on which the eagle 
rested. Into these I cut a tunnel with my hunting- 
knife, arranging the tops in such a way as to screen 



98 Wilderness Ways. 

me more effectively. Then I put out my bait, a 
good two hours before the time of Old Whitehead's 
earliest appearance, and crawled into my den to wait. 

I had barely settled comfortably into my place, 
wondering how long human patience could endure 
the sting of insects and the hot close air without 
moving or stirring a leaf, when the heavy silken rustle 
sounded close at hand, and I heard the grip of his 
talons on the log. There he stood, at arm's length, 
turning his head uneasily, the light glinting on his 
white crest, the fierce, untamed flash in his bright eye. 
Never before had he seemed so big, so strong, so 
splendid; my heart jumped at the thought of him 
as our national emblem. I am glad still to have seen 
that emblem once, and felt the thrill of it. 

But I had little time to think, for Cheplahgan was 
restless. Some instinct seemed to warn him of a 
danger that he could not see. The moment his head 
was turned away, I stretched out my arm. Scarcely 
a leaf moved with the motion, yet he whirled like a 
flash and crouched to spring, his eyes glaring straight 
into mine with an intensity that I could scarce endure. 
Perhaps I was mistaken, but in that swift instant the 
hard glare in his eyes seemed to soften with fear, 
as he recognized me as the one thing in the wilder- 
ness that dared to hunt him, the king. My hand 



Cloud Wings the Ragle. 99 

touched him fair on the shoulder; then he shot into 
the air, and went sweeping in great circles over the 
tree-tops, still looking down, at the man, wondering 
and fearing at the way in which he had been brought 
into the man's power. 

But one thing he did not understand. Standing 
erect on the log, and looking up at him as he swept 
over me, I kept thinking, " I did it, I did it, Cheplah- 
gan, old Cloud Wings. And I had grabbed your legs, 
and pinned you down, and tied you in a bag, and 
brought you to camp, but that I chose to let you go 
free. And that is better than shooting you. Now I 
shall find your little ones and touch them too." 

For several days I had been watching Old White- 
head's lines of flight, and had concluded that his nest 
was somewhere in the hills northwest of the big lake. 
I went there one afternoon, and while confused in the 
big timber, which gave no outlook in any direction, 
I saw, not Old ' Whitehead, but a larger eagle, his 
mate undoubtedly, flying straight westward with food 
towards a great cliff, that I had noticed with my glass 
one day from a mountain on the other side of the lake. 

When I went there, early next morning, it was 
Cheplahgan himself who showed me where his nest 
was. I was hunting along the foot of the cliff when, 
glancing back towards the lake, I saw him coming 



ioo Wilderness Ways. 

far away, and hid in the underbrush. He passed very 
near, and following, I saw him standing on a ledge 
near the top of the cliff. Just below him, in the top 
of a stunted tree growing out of the face of the rock, 
was a huge mass of sticks that formed the nest, with 
a great mother-eagle standing by, feeding the little 
ones. Both birds started away silently when I ap- 
peared, but came back soon and swept back and forth 
over me, as I sat watching the nest and the face of 
the cliff through my glass. No need now of caution. 
Both birds seemed to know instinctively why I had 
come, and that the fate of the eaglets lay in my hands 
if I could but scale the cliff. 

It was scaring business, that three-hundred-foot 
climb up the sheer face of the mountain. Fortu- 
nately the rock was seamed and scarred with the 
wear of centuries ; bushes and stunted trees grew 
out of countless crevices, which gave me sure foot- 
ing, and sometimes a lift of a dozen feet or more on 
my way up. As I climbed, the eagles circled lower 
and lower; the strong rustling of their wings was 
about my head continually; they seemed to grow 
larger, fiercer, every moment, as my hold grew more 
precarious, and the earth and the pointed tree-tops 
dropped farther below. There was a good revolver 
in my pocket, to use in case of necessity ; but had the 



Cloud Wings the Ragle. 101 

great birds attacked me I should have fared badly, 
for at times I was obliged to grip hard with both 
hands, my face to the cliff, leaving the eagles free to 
strike from above and behind. I think now that had 
I shown fear in such a place, or shouted, or tried 
to fray them away, they would have swooped upon 
me, wing and claw, like furies. I could see it in 
their fierce eyes as I looked up. But the thought of 
the times when I had hunted him, and especially the 
thought of that time when I had reached out of the 
bushes and touched him, was upon Old Whitehead 
and made him fear. So I kept steadily on my way, 
apparently giving no thought to the eagles, though 
deep inside I was anxious enough, and reached the 
foot of the tree in which the nest was made. 

I stood there a long time, my arm clasping the 
twisted old boll, looking out over the forest spread 
wide below, partly to regain courage, partly to re- 
assure the eagles, which were circling very near with 
a kind of intense wonder in their eyes, but chiefly 
to make up my mind what to do next. The tree 
was easy to climb, but the nest — a huge affair, 
which had been added to year after year — filled the 
whole tree-top, and I could gain no foothold, from 
which to look over and see the eaglets, without tear- 
ing the nest to pieces. I did not want to do that, 



102 Wilderness Ways. 

and I doubted whether the mother-eagle would stand 
it. A dozen times she seemed on the point of drop- 
ping on my head to tear it with her talons ; but always 
she veered off as I looked up quietly, and Old White- 
head, with the mark of my bullet strong upon him, 
swept between her and me and seemed to say, " Wait, 
wait. I don't understand ; but he can kill us if he 
will — and the little ones are in his power." Now he 
was closer to me than ever, and the fear was vanishing. 
But so also was the fierceness. 

From the foot of the tree the crevice in which it 
grew led upwards to the right, then doubled back to 
the ledge above the nest, upon which Cheplahgan 
was standing when I discovered him. The lip of 
this crevice made a dizzy path that one might follow 
by moving crabwise, his face to the cliff, with only 
its roughnesses to cling to with his fingers. I tried 
it at last, crept up and out twenty feet, and back ten, 
and dropped with a great breath of relief to a broad 
ledge covered with bones and fish scales, the relics 
of many a savage feast. Below me, almost within 
reach, was the nest, with two dark, scraggly young 
birds resting on twigs and grass, with fish, flesh and 
fowl in a gory, skinny, scaly ring about them — the 
most savage-looking household into which I ever 
looked unbidden. 



Cloud Wings the Ragle. 103 

But even as I looked and wondered, and tried to 
make out what other game had been furnished the 
young savages I had helped to feed, a strange thing 
happened, which touched me as few things ever have 
among the wild creatures. The eagles had followed 
me close along the last edge of rock, hoping no doubt 
in their wild hearts that I would slip, and end their 
troubles, and give my body as food to the young. 
Now, as I sat on the ledge, peering eagerly into the 
nest, the great mother-bird left me and hovered over 
her eaglets, as if to shield them with her wings from 
even the sight of my eyes. But Old Whitehead still 
circled over me. Lower he came, and lower, till with 
a supreme effort of daring he folded his wings and 
dropped to the ledge beside me, within ten feet, and 
turned and looked into my eyes. " See," he seemed 
to say, " we are within reach again. You touched me 
once ; I don't know how or why. Here I am now, to 
touch or to kill, as you will ; only spare the little 
ones." 

A moment later the mother-bird dropped to the 
edge of the nest. And there we sat, we three, with 
the wonder upon us all, the young eagles at our feet, 
the cliff above, and, three hundred feet below, the 
spruce tops of the wilderness reaching out and away 
to the mountains beyond the big lake. 



104 Wilderness Ways. 

I sat perfectly still, which is the only way to reassure 
a wild creature ; and soon I thought Cheplahgan had 
lost his fear in his anxiety for the little ones. But the 
moment I rose to go he was in the air again, circling 
restlessly above my head with his mate, the same wild 
fierceness in his eyes as he looked down. A half-hour 
later I had gained the top of the cliff and started east- 
ward towards the lake, coming down by a much easier 
way than that by which I went up. Later I returned 
several times, and from a distance watched the eaglets 
being fed. But I never climbed to the nest again. 

One day, when I came to the little thicket on the 
cliff where I used to lie and watch the nest through 
my glass, I found that one eaglet was gone. The 
other stood on the edge of the nest, looking down 
fearfully into the abyss, whither, no doubt, his bolder 
nest mate had flown, and calling disconsolately from 
time to time. His whole attitude showed plainly that 
he was hungry and cross and lonesome. Presently 
the mother-eagle came swiftly up from the valley, and 
there was food in her talons. She came to the edge 
of the nest, hovered over it a moment, so as to give 
the hungry eaglet a sight and smell of food, then went 
slowly down to the valley, taking the food with her, 
telling the little one in her own way to come and he 
should have it. He called after her loudly from the 



Cloud Wings the Eagle. 105 

edge of the nest, and spread his wings a dozen times 
to follow. But the plunge was top awful ; his heart 
failed him ; and he settled back in the nest, and pulled 
his head down into his shoulders, and shut his eyes, 
and tried to forget that he was hungry. The mean- 
ing of the little comedy was plain enough. She was 
trying to teach him to fly, telling him that his wings 
were grown and the time was come to use them ; but 
he was afraid. 

In a little while she came back again, this time with- 
out food, and hovered over the nest, trying every way 
to induce the little one to leave it. She succeeded at 
last, when with a desperate effort he sprang upward 
and flapped to the ledge above, where I had sat and 
watched him with Old Whitehead. Then, after sur- 
veying the world gravely from his new place, he 
flapped back to the nest, and turned a deaf ear to all 
his mother's assurances that he could fly just as easily 
to the tree-tops below, if he only would. 

Suddenly, as if discouraged, she rose well above 
him. I held my breath, for I knew what was coming. 
The little fellow stood on the edge of the nest, look- 
ing down at the plunge which he dared not take. 
There was a sharp cry from behind, which made him 
alert, tense as a watch-spring. The next instant the 
mother-eagle had swooped, striking the nest at his 



106 Wilderness Ways. 

feet, sending his support of twigs and himself with 
them out into the air together. 

He was afloat now, afloat on the blue air in spite of 
himself, and flapped lustily for life. Over him, under 
him, beside him hovered the mother on tireless wings, 
calling softly that she was there. But the awful fear 
of the depths and the lance tops of the spruces was 
upon the little one ; his flapping grew more wild ; he 
fell faster and faster. Suddenly — more in fright, it 
seemed to me, than because he had spent his strength 
— he lost his balance and tipped head downward in 
the air. It was all over now, it seemed; he folded 
his wings to be dashed in pieces among the trees. 
Then like a flash the old mother-eagle shot under 
him ; his despairing feet touched her broad shoulders, 
between her wings. He righted himself, rested an 
instant, found his head ; then she dropped like a 
shot from under him, leaving him to come down on 
his own wings. A handful of feathers, torn out by 
his claws, hovered slowly down after them. 

It was all the work of an instant before I lost them 
among the trees far below. And when I found them 
again with my glass, the eaglet was in the top of a 
great pine, and the mother was feeding him. 

And then, standing there alone in the great wilder- 
ness, it flashed upon me for the first time just what 



Cloud Wings the Ragle. 107 

the wise old prophet meant ; though he wrote long ago, 
in a distant land, and another than Cloud Wings had 
taught her little ones, all unconscious of the kindly 
eyes that watched out of a thicket : " As the eagle 
stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, 
spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth 
them on her wings, — so the Lord." 



VII. UPWEEKIS THE SHADOW. 



ONG 'go, O long time 'go," so says Simmo the 
Indian, Upweekis the lynx came 
to Clote Scarpe one day with a 
complaint. " See," he said, " you 
are good to everybody but me. 
Pekquam the fisher is cunning 
and patient; he can catch what 
he will. Lhoks the panther is 
strong and tireless ; nothing can 
get away from him, not even 
the great moose. And Moo- 
ween the bear sleeps all winter, when 
game is scarce, and in summer eats 
everything, — roots and mice and berries 
and dead fish and meat and honey and 
red ants. So he is always full and 
happy. But my eyes are no good ; 
they are bright, like Cheplahgan the 
eagle's, yet they cannot see anything 
unless it moves ; for you have made 
every creature that hides just like the 

place he hides in. My nose is worse ; it cannot smell 

1 08 




Upweekis the Shadow. 109 

Seksagadagee the grouse, though I walk over him 
asleep in the snow. And my feet make a noise in 
the leaves, so that Moktaques the rabbit hears me, 
and hides, and laughs behind me when I go to catch 
him. And I am always hungry. Make me now like 
the shadows that play, in order that nothing may 
notice me when I go hunting." 

So Clote Scarpe, the great chief who was kind to 
all animals, gave Upweekis a soft gray coat that is 
almost invisible in the woods, summer or winter, and 
made his feet large, and padded them with soft fur; 
so that indeed he is like the shadows that play, for 
you can neither see nor hear him. But Clote Scarpe 
remembered Moktaques the rabbit also, and gave him 
two coats, a brown one for summer and a white one 
for winter. Consequently he is harder than ever to see 
when he is quiet; and Upweekis must still depend 
upon his wits to catch him. As Upweekis has few 
wits to spare, Moktaques often sees him close at hand, 
and chuckles in his form under the brown ferns, or 
sits up straight- under the snow-covered hemlock tips, 
and watches the big lynx at his hunting. 



Sometimes, on a winter night, when you camp in 
the wilderness, and the snow is sifting down into your 



no Wilderness Ways. 

fire, and the woods are all still, a fierce screech breaks 
suddenly out of the darkness just behind your wind- 
break of boughs. You jump to your feet and grab 
your rifle ; but Simmo, who is down on his knees 
before the fire frying pork, only turns his head to 
listen a moment, and says : " Upweekis catch-um 
rabbit dat time." Then he gets closer to the fire, for 
the screech was not pleasant, and goes on with his 
cooking. 

You are more curious than he, or you want the big 
cat's skin to take home with you. You steal away 
towards the cry, past the little commoosie, or shelter, 
that you made hastily at sundown when the trail 
ended. There, with your back to the fire and the 
commoosie between, the light does not dazzle your 
eyes ; you can trace the shadows creeping in and out 
stealthily among the underbrush. But if Upweekis 
is there — and he probably is — you do not see him. 
He is a shadow among the shadows. Only there is 
this difference: shadows move no bushes. As you 
watch, a fir-tip stirs; a bit of snow drops down. You 
gaze intently at the spot. Then out of the deep 
shadow two living coals are suddenly kindled. They 
grow larger and larger, glowing, flashing, burning 
holes into your eyes till you brush them swiftly with 
your hand. A shiver runs over you, for to look into 



Upweekis the Shadow. 1 1 1 

the eyes of a lynx at night, when the light catches 
them, is a scary experience. Your rifle jumps to posi- 
tion ; the glowing coals are quenched on the instant. 
Then, when your eyes have blinked the fascination 
out of them, the shadows go creeping in and out 
again, and Upweekis is lost amongst them. 

Sometimes, indeed, you see him again. Moktaques, 
the big white hare, who forgets a thing the moment it 
is past, sees you standing there and is full of curiosity. 
He forgets that he was being hunted a moment ago, 
and comes hopping along to see what you are. You 
back away toward the fire. He scampers off in a 
fright, but presently comes hopping after you. Watch 
the underbrush behind him sharply. In a moment it 
stirs stealthily, as if a shadow were moving it; and 
there is the lynx, stealing along in the snow with his 
eyes blazing. Again Moktaques feels that he is 
hunted, and does the only safe thing; he crouches low 
in the snow, where a fir-tip bends over him, and is still 
as the earth. His color hides him perfectly. 

Upweekis has lost the trail again ; he wavers back 
and forth, like a shadow^ under a swinging lamp, turning 
his great head from side to side. He cannot see nor 
hear nor smell his game ; but he saw a bit of snow fly 
a moment ago, and knows that it came from Moktaques' 
big pads. Don't stir now; be still as the great spruce 



H2 Wilderness Ways. 

in whose shadow you stand ; and, once in a hunter's 
lifetime perhaps, you will see a curious tragedy. 

The lynx settles himself in the snow, with all four 
feet close together, ready for a spring. As you watch 
and wonder, a screech rings out through the woods, so 
sharp and fierce that no rabbit's nerves can stand it 
close at hand and be still. Moktaques jumps straight 
up in the air. The lynx sees it, whirls, hurls himself 
at the spot. Another screech, a different one, and then 
you know that it's all over. 

And that is why Upweekis' cry is so fierce and 
sudden on a winter night. Your fire attracts the rab- 
bits. Upweekis knows this, or is perhaps attracted 
himself and comes also, and hides among the shadows. 
But he never catches anything unless he blunders onto 
it. That is why he wanders so much in winter and 
passes twenty rabbits before he catches one. So when 
he knows that Moktaques is near, watching the light, 
but remaining himself invisible, Upweekis crouches 
for a spring ; then he screeches fearfully. Moktaques 
hears it and is startled, as anybody else would be, hear- 
ing such a cry near him. He jumps in a fright and 
pays the penalty. 

If the lynx is a big one, and very hungry, as he gen- 
erally is in winter, you may get some unpleasant 
impressions of him in another way when you venture 



Upweekis the Shadow. 1 1 3 

far from your fire. His eyes blaze out at you from the 
darkness, just two big glowing spots, which are all you 
see, and which disappear at your first motion. Then 
as you strain your eyes, and watch and listen, you feel 
the coals upon you again from another place; and 
there they are, under a bush on your left, creeping 
closer and blazing deep red. They disappear suddenly 
as the lynx turns his head, only to reappear and fasci- 
nate you from another point. So he plays with you 
as if you were a great mouse, creeping closer all the 
time, swishing his stub tail fiercely to lash himself up 
to the courage point of springing. But his movements 
are so still and shadowy that unless he follows you as 
you back away to the fire, and so comes within the 
circle of light, the chances are that you will never 
see him. 

Indeed the chances are always that way, day or 
night, unless you turn hunter and set a trap for him in 
the rabbit paths which he follows nightly, and hang a 
bait over it to make him look up and forget his steps. 
In summer he goes to the burned lands for the rabbits 
that swarm in the thickets, and to rear his young in 
seclusion. You find his tracks there all about, and the 
marks of his killing ; but though you watch and prowl 
all day and come home in the twilight, you will learn 
little. He hears you and skulks away amid the lights 



1 1 4 Wilderness Ways. 

and shadows of the hillside, and so hides himself — in 
plain sight, sometimes, like a young partridge — that 
he manages to keep a clean record in the notebook 
where you hoped to write down all about him. 

In winter you cross his tracks, great round tracks 
that wander everywhere through the big woods, and 
you think: Now I shall find him surely. But though 
you follow for miles and learn much about him, finding 
where he passed this rabbit close at hand, without 
suspecting it, and caught that one by accident, and 
missed the partridge that burst out of the snow under 
his very feet, — still Upweekis himself remains only a 
shadow of the woods. Once, after a glorious long tramp 
on his trail, I found the spot where he had been sleep- 
ing a moment before. But beside that experience I 
must put fifty other trails that I have followed, of 
which I never saw the end nor the beginning. And 
whenever I have found out anything about Upweekis 
it has generally come unexpectedly, as most good 
things do. 

Once the chance came as I was watching a muskrat 
at his supper. It was twilight in the woods. I had 
drifted in close to shore in my canoe to see what 
Musquash was doing on top of a rock. All muskrats 
have favorite eating places — a rock, a stranded log, a 
tree boll that leans out over the water, and always a 



Upweekis the Shadow. 1 1 5 

pretty spot — whither they bring food from a distance, 
evidently for the purpose of eating it where they feel 
most at home. This one had gathered a half dozen 
big fresh-water clams onto his dining table, and sat 
down in the midst to enjoy the feast. He would take 
a clam in his fore paws, whack it a few times on the 
rock till the shell cracked, then open it with his teeth 
and devour the morsel inside. He ate leisurely, tasting 
each clam critically before swallowing, and sitting up 
often to wash his whiskers or to look out over the 
lake. A hermit thrush sang marvelously sweet above 
him ; the twilight colors glowed deep and deeper in the 
water below, where his shadow was clearly eating clams 
also, in the midst of heaven's splendor. — Altogether a 
pretty scene, and a moment of peace that I still love 
to remember. I quite forgot that Musquash is a 
villain. But the tragedy was near, as it always is in 
the wilderness. Suddenly a movement caught my eye 
on the bank above. Something was waving nervously 
under the bushes. Before I could make out what it 
was, there was a fearful rush, a gleam of wild yellow 
eyes, a squeak from the muskrat. Then Upweekis, 
looking gaunt and dark and strange in his summer 
coat, was crouched on the rock with Musquash 
between his great paws, growling fiercely as he 
cracked the bones. He bit his game all over, to make 



1 1 6 Wilderness Ways. 

sure that it was quite dead, then took it by the back 
of the neck, glided into the bushes with his stub tail 
twitching, and became a shadow again. 

Another time I was perched up in a lodged tree, 
some twenty feet from the ground, watching a big bait 
of fish which I had put in an open spot for anything 
that might choose to come and get it. I was hoping 
for a bear, and so climbed above the ground that he 
might not get my scent should he come from leeward. 
It was early autumn, and my intentions were wholly 
peaceable. I had no weapon of any kind. 

Late in the afternoon something took to chasing a 
red squirrel near me. I heard them scurrying through 
the trees, but could see nothing. The chase passed 
out of hearing, and I had almost forgotten it, for some- 
thing was moving in the underbrush near my bait, 
when back it came with a rush. The squirrel, half 
dead with fright, leaped from a spruce-tip to the ground, 
jumped onto the tree in which I sat, and raced up the 
incline, almost to my feet, w T here he sprang to a branch 
and sat chattering hysterically between two fears. 
After him came a pine marten, following swiftly, catch- 
ing the scent of his game, not from the bark or the 
ground, but apparently from the air. Scarcely had he 
jumped upon my tree when there was a screech and a 
rush in the underbrush just below him, and out of the 



Upweekis the Shadow. 1 1 7 

bushes came a young lynx to join in the chase. He 
missed the marten on the ground, but sprang to my 
tree like a flash. I remembe? still that the only sound 
I was conscious of at the time was the ripping of his 
nails in the dead bark. He had been seeking my bait 
undoubtedly — for it was a good lynx country, and 
Upweekis loves fish like a cat — when the chase passed 
under his nose and he joined it on the instant. 

Halfway up the incline the marten smelled me, or 
was terrified by the noise behind him and leaped aside. 
A branch upon which I was leaning swayed or 
snapped, and the lucivee stopped as if struck, crouch- 
ing lower and lower against the tree, his big yellow 
expressionless eyes glaring straight into mine. A 
moment only he stood the steady look ; then his eyes 
wavered; he turned his head, leaped for the under- 
brush, and was gone. 

Another moment and Meeko the squirrel had for- 
gotten his fright and peril and everything else save his 
curiosity to find out who I was and all about me. He 
had to pass quite close to me to get to another tree, 
but anything was better than going back where the 
marten might be waiting; so he was presently over 
my head, snickering and barking to make me move, 
and scolding me soundly for disturbing the peace of 
the woods. 



n8 Wilderness Ways. 

In summer Upweekis is a solitary creature, rearing 
his young away back on the wildest burned lands, 
where game is plenty and where it is almost impossible 
to find him except by accident. In winter also he 
roams alone for the most part ; but occasionally, when 
rabbits are scarce, as they are periodically in the north- 
ern woods, he gathers in small bands for the purpose 
of pulling down big game that he would never attack 
singly. Generally Upweekis is skulking and cowardly 
with man ; but when driven by hunger (as I found out 
once) or when hunting in bands, he is a savage beast 
and must be followed cautiously. 

I had heard much of the fierceness of these hunting 
bands from settlers and hunters; and once a friend 
of mine, an old backwoodsman, had a narrow escape 
from them. He had a dog, Grip, a big brindled cur, 
of whose prowess in killing " varmints " he was always 
bragging, calling him the best " lucififer " dog in all 
Canada. Lucififer, by the way, is a local name for 
the lynx on the upper St. John, where Grip and his 
master lived. 

One day in winter the master missed a young heifer 
and went on his trail, with Grip and his axe for com- 
panions. Presently he came to lynx tracks, then to 
signs of a struggle, then plump upon six or seven of 
the big cats snarling savagely over the body of the 



Upweekis the Shadow. 1 1 9 

heifer, Grip, the lucififer dog, rushed in blindly, and 
in two minutes was torn to ribbons. Then the lynxes 
came creeping and snarling towards the man, who 
backed away, shouting and swinging his axe. He killed 
one by a lucky blow, as it sprang for his chest. The 
others drove him to his own door; but he would never 
have reached it, so he told me, but for a long strip of 
open land that he had cleared back into the woods. 
He would face and charge the beasts, which seemed 
more afraid of his voice than of the axe, then run des- 
perately to keep them from circling and getting 
between him and safety. When he reached the open 
strip they followed a little way along the edges of the 
underbrush, but returned one at a time when they 
were sure he had no further mind to disturb their 
feast or their fighting. 

It is curious that when Upweekis and his hunting 
pack pull down game in this way the first thing they 
do is to fight over it. There may be meat enough and 
to spare, but under their fearful hunger is the old 
beastly instinct for each one to grab all for himself ; so 
they fall promptly to teeth and claws before the game 
is dead. The fightings at such times are savage 
affairs, both to the eye and ear. One forgets that 
Upweekis is a shadow, and thinks that he must be 
a fiend. 



120 Wilderness Ways. 

One day in winter, when after caribou, I came upon 
a very large lynx track, the largest I have ever seen. 
It was two days old; but it led in my direction, toward 
the caribou barrens, and I followed it to see what I 
should see. 

Presently it joined four other lynx trails, and a mile 
farther on all five trails went forward in great flying 
leaps, each lynx leaving a hole in the snow as big as a 
bucket at every jump. A hundred yards of this kind 
of traveling and the trails joined another trail, — that 
of a wounded caribou from the barrens. His tracks 
showed that he had been traveling with difficulty on 
three legs. Here was a place where he had stood 
to listen ; and there was another place where even 
untrained eyes might see that he had plunged forward 
with a start of fear. It was a silent story, but full of 
eager interest in every detail. 

The lucivee tracks now showed different tactics. 
They crossed and crisscrossed the trail, appearing now 
in front, now behind, now on either side the wounded 
bull, evidently closing in upon him warily. Here and 
there was a depression in the snow where one had 
crouched, growling, as the game passed. Then the 
struggle began. First, there was a trampled place in 
the snow where the bull had taken a stand and the big 
cats went creeping about him, waiting for a chance to 



TJpweekis the Shadow. 121 

spring all together. He broke away from that, but the 
three-legged gallop speedily exhausted him. Only 
when he trots is a caribou "tireless. The lynxes fol- 
lowed ; the deadly cat-play began again. First one, 
then another leaped, only to be shaken off ; then two, 
then all five were upon the poor brute, which still 
struggled forward. The record was written red all 
over the snow. 

As I followed it cautiously, a snarl sounded just 
ahead. I kicked off my snowshoes and circled noise- 
lessly to the left, so as to look out over a little opening. 
There lay the stripped carcass of the caribou with two 
lynxes still upon it, growling fearfully at each other as 
they pulled at the bones. Another lynx crouched in 
the snow, under a bush, watching the scene. Two 
others circled about each other snarling, looking for 
an opening, but too well fed to care for a fight just 
then. Two or three foxes, a pine marten, and a fisher 
moved ceaselessly in and out, sniffing hungrily, and 
waiting for a chance to seize every scrap of bone or 
skin that was left unguarded for an instant. Above 
them a dozen moose birds kept the same watch 
vigilantly. As I stole nearer, hoping to get behind an 
old log where I could lie and watch the spectacle, 
some creature scurried out of the underbrush at one 
side. I was watching the movement, when a loud 



122 Wilderness Ways. 

kee-yaaah ! startled me ; I whirled towards the open- 
ing. From behind the old log a fierce round head 
with tasseled ears rose up, and the big lynx, whose 
trail I had first followed, sprang into sight snarling 
and spitting viciously. 

The feast stopped at the first alarm. The marten 
disappeared instantly. The foxes and the fisher and 
one lynx slunk away. Another, which I had not seen, 
stalked up to the carcass and put his fore paws upon it, 
and turned his savage head in my direction. Evidently 
other lynxes had come in to the kill beside the five I 
had followed. Then all the big cats crouched in the 
snow and stared at me steadily out of their wild yellow 
eyes. 

It was only for a moment. The big lynx on my 
side of the log was in a fighting temper; he snarled 
continuously. Another sprang over the log and 
crouched beside him, facing me. Then began a curi- 
ous scene, of which I could not wait to see the end. 
The two lynxes hitched nearer and nearer to where I 
stood motionless, watching. They would creep forward 
a step or two, then crouch in the snow, like a cat 
warming her feet, and stare at me unblinkingly for 
a few moments. Then another hitch or two, which 
brought them nearer, and another stare. I could not 
look at one steadily, to make him waver; for the 



Upweekis the Shadow. 123 

moment my eyes were upon him the others hitched 
closer ; and already two more lynxes were coming over 
the log. I had to draw the curtain hastily with a 
bullet between the yellow eyes of the biggest lynx, 
and a second straight into the chest of his fellow- 
starer, just as he wriggled down into the snow for a 
spring. The others had leaped away snarling as the 
first heavy report rolled through the woods. 

Another time, in the same region, a solitary lynx 
made me uncomfortable for half an afternoon. It was 
Sunday, and I had gone for a snowshoe tramp, leaving 
my rifle behind me. On the way back to camp I 
stopped for a caribou head and skin, which I had 
cached on the edge of a barren the morning before. 
The weather had changed ; a bitter cold wind blew 
after me as I turned toward camp. I carried the head 
with its branching antlers on my shoulder ; the skin 
hung down, to keep my back warm, its edges trailing 
in the snow. 

Gradually I became convinced that something was 
following me ; but I turned several times without 
seeing anything. "It is only a fisher," I thought, and 
kept on steadily, instead of going back to examine my 
trail ; for I was hoping for a glimpse of the cunning 
creature whose trail you find so often running side by 
side with your own, and who follows you, if you have 



I2 4 Wilderness Ways. 

any trace of game about you, hour after hour through 
the wilderness, without ever showing himself in the 
light. Then I whirled suddenly, obeying an impulse ; 
and there was Upweekis, a big, savage-looking fellow, 
just gliding up on my trail in plain sight, following 
the broad snowshoe track and the scent of the fresh 
caribou skin without difficulty, poor trailer though 
he be. 

He stopped and sat down on his feet, as a lucivee 
generally does when you surprise him, and stared at 
me steadily. When I went on again I knew that he 
was after me, though he had disappeared from the trail. 

Then began a double-quick of four miles, the object 
being to reach camp before night should fall and give 
the lucivee the advantage. It was already late enough 
to make one a bit uneasy. He knew that I was hur- 
rying ; he grew bolder, showing himself openly on 
the trail behind me. I turned into an old swamping 
road, which gave me a bit of open before and behind. 
Then I saw him occasionally on either side, or crouch- 
ing half hid until I passed. Clearly he was waiting 
for night; but to this day I am not sure whether it 
was the man or the caribou skin upon which he had 
set his heart. The scent of flesh and blood was in his 
nose, and he was too hungry to control himself much 
longer. 



Upweekis the Shadow. 125 

I cut a good club with my big jack-knife, and, watch- 
ing my chance, threw off the caribou head and jumped 
for him as he crouched in the* snow. He leaped aside 
untouched, but crouched again instantly, showing all 
his teeth, snarling horribly. Three times I swung at 
him warily. Each time he jumped aside and watched 
for his opening ; but I kept the club in play before his 
eyes, and it was not yet dark enough. Then I yelled 
in his face, to teach him fear, and went on again. 

Near camp I shouted for Simmo to bring my rifle ; 
but he was slow in understanding, and his answering 
shout alarmed the savage creature near me. His 
movements became instantly more wary, more hidden. 
He left the open trail ; and once, when I saw him well 
behind me, his head was raised high, listening. I threw 
down the caribou head to keep him busy, and ran for 
camp. In a few minutes I was stealing back again 
with my rifle ; but Upweekis had felt the change in 
the situation and was again among the shadows, where 
he belongs. I lost his trail in the darkening woods. 

There was another lynx which showed me, one day, 
a different side to Upweekis' nature. It was in sum- 
mer, when every creature in the wilderness seems an 
altogether different creature from the one you knew last 
winter, with new habits, new duties, new pleasures, and 
even a new coat to hide him better from his enemies. 



126 Wilderness Ways. 

Opposite my island camp, where I halted a little 
while in a summer's roving, was a burned ridge; that 
is, it had been burned over years before ; now it 
was a perfect tangle, with many an open sunny spot, 
however, where berries grew by handfuls. Rabbits 
swarmed there, and grouse were plenty. As it was 
forty miles back from the settlements, it seemed a per- 
fect place for Upweekis to make a den in. And so it 
was. I have no doubt there were a dozen litters of 
kittens on that two miles of ridge ; but the cover was 
so dense that nothing smaller than a deer could be 
seen moving. 

For two weeks I hunted the ridge whenever I was 
not fishing, stealing in and out among the thickets, 
depending more upon ears than eyes, but seeing noth- 
ing of Upweekis, save here and there a trampled fern, 
or a blood-splashed leaf, with a bit of rabbit fur, or a 
great round cat track, to tell the story. Once I came 
upon a bear and two cubs among the berries; and 
once, when the wind was blowing down the hill, I 
walked almost up to a bull caribou without seeing him. 
He was watching my approach curiously, only his 
eyes, ears, and horns showing above the tangle where 
he stood. Down in the coverts it was always intensely 
still, with a stillness that I took good care not to 
break. So when the great brute whirled with a snort 



Upweekis the Shadow. 127 

and a tremendous crash of bushes, almost under my 
nose, it raised my hair for a moment, not knowing 
what the creature was, nor which way he was heading. 
But though every day brought its experience, and its 
knowledge, and its new wonder at the ways of wild 
things, I found no trace of the den, nor of the kittens 
I had hoped to watch. All animals are silent near 
their little ones, so there was never a cry by night or 
day to guide me. 

Late one afternoon, when I had climbed to the top 
of the ridge and was on my way back to camp, I ran 
into an odor, the strong, disagreeable odor that always 
hovers about the den of a carnivorous animal. I 
followed it through a thicket, and came to an open 
stony place, with a sharp drop of five or six feet to 
dense cover below. The odor came from this cover, 
so I jumped down; when — yeow, karrrr, pft-pft! 
Almost under my feet a gray thing leaped away snarl- 
ing, followed by another. I had the merest glimpse of 
them ; but from the way they bristled and spit and 
arched their backs, I knew that I had stumbled upon 
a pair of the lynx kittens, for which I had searched so 
long in vain. 

They had, probably, been lying out on the warm 
stones, until, hearing strange footsteps, they had glided 
away to cover. When I crashed down near them 



128 Wilderness Ways. 

they had been scared into showing their temper ; else 
I had never seen them in the underbrush. Fortu- 
nately for me, the fierce old mother was away. Had 
she been there, I should undoubtedly have had more 
serious business on hand than watching her kittens. 

They had not seen more of me than my shoes and 
stockings ; so when I stole after them, to see what they 
were like, they were waiting under a bush to see what 
I was like. They jumped away again, spitting, without 
seeing me, alarmed by the rustle which I could not 
avoid making in the cover. So I followed them, just 
a quiver of leaves here, a snarl there, and then a rush 
away, until they doubled back towards the rocky place, 
where, parting the underbrush cautiously, I saw a dark 
hole among the rocks of a little opening. The roots 
of an upturned tree arched over the hole, making a 
broad doorway. In this doorway stood two half-grown 
lucivees, fuzzy and gray and savage-looking, their 
backs still up, their wild eyes turned in my direction 
apprehensively. Seeing me they drew farther back 
into the den, and I saw nothing more of them save 
now and then their round heads, or the fire in their 
yellow eyes. 

It was too late for further observation that day. 
The fierce old mother lynx would presently be back ; 
they would let her know of the intruder in some way ; 



Upweekis the Shadow. 129 

and they would all keep close in the den. I found a 
place, some dozen yards above, where it would be 
possible to watch them , marked the spot by a blasted 
stub, to which I made a compass of broken twigs; 
and then went back to camp. 

Next morning I omitted the early fishing, and was 
back at the place before the sun looked over the ridge. 
Their den was all quiet, in deep shadow. Mother 
Lynx was still away on the early hunting. I intended 
to kill her when she came back. My rifle lay ready 
across my knees. Then I would watch the kittens a 
little while, and kill them also. I wanted their skins, 
all soft and fine with their first fur. And they were 
too big and fierce to think of taking them alive. My 
vacation was over. Simmo was already packing up, to 
break camp that morning. So there would be no time 
to carry out my long-cherished plan of watching 
young lynxes at play, as I had before watched young 
foxes and bears and owls and fish-hawks, and indeed 
almost everything, except Upweekis, in the wilderness. 

Presently one of the lucivees came out, yawned, 
stretched, raised himself against a root. In the morn- 
ing stillness I could hear the cut and rip of his claws 
on the wood. We call the action sharpening the 
claws; but it is only the occasional exercise of the 
fine flexor muscles that a cat uses so seldom, yet must 



13° Wilderness Ways. 

use powerfully when the time comes. The second 
lucivee came out of the shadow a moment later and 
leaped upon the fallen tree where he could better 
watch the hillside below. For half an hour or more, 
while I waited expectantly, both animals moved rest- 
lessly about the den, or climbed over the roots and 
trunk of the fallen tree. They were plainly cross; 
they made no attempt at play, but kept well away 
from each other with a wholesome respect for teeth 
and claws and temper. Breakfast hour was long past, 
evidently, and they were hungry. 

Suddenly one, who was at that moment watching 
from the tree trunk, leaped down; the second joined 
him, and both paced back and forth excitedly. They 
had heard the sounds of a coming that were too fine 
for my ears. A stir in the underbrush, and Mother 
Lynx, a great savage creature, stalked out proudly. She 
carried a dead hare gripped across the middle of the 
back. The long ears on one side, the long legs on the 
other, hung limply, showing a fresh kill. She walked 
to the doorway of her den, crossed it back and forth 
two or three times, still carrying the hare as if the lust 
of blood were raging within her and she could not drop 
her prey even to her own little ones, which followed 
her hungrily, one on either side. Once, as she turned 
toward me, one of the kittens seized a leg of the hare 



Up week is the Shadow. 131 

and jerked it savagely. The mother whirled on him, 
growling deep down in her throat; the youngster 
backed away, scared but snarlkig. At last she flung 
the game down. The kittens fell upon it like furies, 
growling at each other, as I had seen the stranger lynxes 
growling once before over the caribou. In a moment 
they had torn the carcass apart and were crouched, 
each one over his piece, gnarling like a cat over a 
rat, and stuffing themselves greedily in utter forgetful- 
ness of the mother lynx, which lay under a bush some 
distance away and watched them. 

In a half hour the savage meal was over. The 
little ones sat up, licked their chops, and began to 
tongue their broad paws. The mother had been blink- 
ing sleepily ; now she rose and came to her young. A 
change had come over the family. The kittens ran to 
meet the dam as if they had not seen her before, 
rubbing softly against her legs, or sitting up to rub 
their whiskers against hers — a tardy thanks for the 
breakfast she had provided. The fierce old mother too 
seemed altogether different. She arched her back 
against the roots, purring loudly, while the little ones 
arched and purred against her sides. Then she bent 
her savage head and licked them fondly with her 
tongue, while they rubbed as close to her as they 
could get, passing between her legs as under a bridge, 



13 2 Wilderness Ways. 

and trying to lick her face in return ; till all their 
tongues were going at once and the family lay down 
together. 

It was time to kill them now. The rifle lay ready. 
But a change had come over the watcher too. Hith- 
erto he had seen Upweekis as a ferocious brute, whom 
it was good to kill. This was altogether different. 
Upweekis could be gentle also, it seemed, and give 
herself for her little ones. And a bit of tenderness, 
like that which lay so unconscious under my eyes, gets 
hold of a man, and spikes his guns better than moral- 
izing. So the watcher stole away, making as little 
noise as he could, following his compass of twigs to 
where the canoes lay ready and Simmo was waiting. 

Sometime, I hope, Simmo and I will camp there 
again, in winter. And then I shall listen with a new 
interest for a cry in the night which tells me that 
Moktaques the rabbit is hiding close at hand in the 
snow, where a young lynx of my acquaintance cannot 
find him. 



VIII. HUKWEEM THE NIGHT VOICE. 



UKWEEM the loon must go 

through the world crying for what 

he never gets, and searching for 

one whom he never finds ; for he 

is the hunting-dog of Clote Scarpe. 

So said Simmo to me one night in 

explaining why the loon's cry is so 

wild and sad. 

Clote Scarpe, by the way, is the 
legendary hero, the Hiawatha of 
the northern Indians. Long ago he 
lived on the Wollastook, and ruled 
the animals, which all lived peaceably together, under- 
standing each other's language, and "nobody ever ate 
anybody," as Simmo says. But when Clote Scarpe 
went away they quarreled, and Lhoks the panther and 
Nemox the fisher took to killing the other animals. 
Malsun the wolf soon followed, and ate all he killed; 
and Meeko the squirrel, who always makes all the 
mischief he can, set even the peaceable animals by the 
ears, so that they feared and distrusted each other. 

I 33 




C^WA 



134 Wilderness Ways. 

Then they scattered through the big woods, living 
each one for himself; and now the strong ones kill 
the weak, and nobody understands anybody any more. 

There were no dogs in those days. Hukweem was 
Clote Scarpe's hunting companion when he hunted 
the great evil beasts that disturbed the wilderness ; 
and Hukweem alone, of all the birds and animals, 
remained true to his master. For hunting makes 
strong friendship, says Simmo ; and that is true. 
Therefore does Hukweem go through the world, 
looking for his master and calling him to come back. 
Over the tree-tops, when he flies low looking for new 
waters; high in air, out of sight, on his southern 
migrations; and on every lake where he is only a 
voice, the sad night voice of the vast solitary unknown 
wilderness — everywhere you hear him seeking. Even 
on the seacoast in winter, where he knows Clote 
Scarpe cannot be — for Clote Scarpe hates the sea — 
Hukweem forgets himself, and cries occasionally out 
of pure loneliness. 

When I asked what Hukweem says when he cries 
— for all cries of the wilderness have their interpreta- 
tion — Simmo answered: " Wy, he say two ting. First 
he say, Where are you ? O where are you ? Dass 
what you call-um his laugh, like he crazy. Denn, 
wen nobody answer, he say, O I so sorry, so sorry ! 



Hukweem the Night Voice. 135 

Ooooo-eee ! like woman lost in woods. An' dass his 
t other cry." 

This comes nearer to explaining the wild unearth- 
liness of Hukweem's call than anything else I know. 
It makes things much simpler to understand, when you 
are camped deep in the wilderness, and the night falls, 
and out of the misty darkness under the farther shore 
comes a wild shivering call that makes one's nerves 
tingle till he finds out about it — Where are you ? 
O where are you? That is just like Hukweem. 

Sometimes, however, he varies the cry, and asks very 
plainly : " Who are you ? O who are you ? " There 
was a loon on the Big Squattuk lake, where I camped 
one summer, which was full of inquisitiveness as a 
blue jay. He lived alone at one end of the lake, 
while his mate, with her brood of two, lived at the 
other end, nine miles away. Every morning and 
evening he came close to my camp — very much 
nearer than is usual, for loons are wild and shy in 
the wilderness — to cry ' out his challenge. Once, 
late at night, I flashed a lantern at the end of the old 
log that served as a landing for the canoes, where I 
had heard strange ripples; and there was Hukweem, 
examining everything with the greatest curiosity. 

Every unusual thing in our doings made him in- 
quisitive to know all about it. Once, when I started 



136 Wilderness Ways. 

down the lake with a fair wind, and a small spruce set 
up in the bow of my canoe for a sail, he followed me 
four or five miles, calling all the way. And when I 
came back to camp at twilight with a big bear in the 
canoe, his shaggy head showing over the bow, and 
his legs up over the middle thwart, like a little old 
black man with his wrinkled feet on the table, Huk- 
weem's curiosity could stand it no longer. He swam 
up within twenty yards, and circled the canoe half 
a dozen times, sitting up straight on his tail by a 
vigorous use of his wings, stretching his neck like 
an inquisitive duck, so as to look into the canoe and 
see what queer thing I had brought with me. 

He had another curious habit which afforded him 
unending amusement. There was a deep bay on 
the west shore of the lake, with hills rising abruptly 
on three sides. The echo here was remarkable ; a 
single shout brought a dozen distinct answers, and 
then a confusion of tongues as the echoes and re- 
echoes from many hills met and mingled. I discov- 
ered the place in an interesting way. 

One evening at twilight, as I was returning to camp 
from exploring the upper lake, I heard a wild crying 
of loons on the west side. There seemed to be five 
or six of the great divers, all laughing and shrieking 
like so many lunatics. Pushing over to investigate, I 



Hukweem the Night Voice. 137 

noticed for the first time the entrance to a great bay, 
and paddled up cautiously behind a point, so as to 
surprise the loons at their garne. For they play games, 
just as crows do. But when I looked in, there was 
only one bird, Hukweem the Inquisitive. I knew him 
instantly by his great size and beautiful markings. He 
would give a single sharp call, and listen intently, with 
head up, swinging from side to side as the separate 
echoes came ringing back from the hills. Then he 
would try his cackling laugh, Ooo-ah-ha-ha-ha-hoo, 000- 
ah-ha-ha-ha-hoo, and as the echoes began to ring about 
his head he would get excited, sitting up on his tail, 
flapping his wings, cackling and shrieking with glee at 
his own performance. Every wild syllable was flung 
back like a shot from the surrounding hills, till the air 
seemed full of loons, all mingling their crazy cachinna- 
tions with the din of the chief performer. The uproar 
made one shiver. Then Hukweem would cease sud- 
denly, listening intently to the warring echoes. Before 
the confusion was half ended he would get excited 
again, and swim about in small circles, spreading wings 
and tail, showing his fine feathers as if every echo 
were an admiring loon, pleased as a peacock with him- 
self at having made such a noise in a quiet world. 

There was another loon, a mother bird, on a different 
lake, whose two eggs had been carried off by a thieving 



138 Wilderness Ways. 

muskrat ; but she did not know who did it, for Musquash 
knows how to roll the eggs into water and carry them 
off, before eating, where the mother bird will not find 
the shells. She came swimming down to meet us the 
moment our canoe entered the lake ; and what she 
seemed to cry was, " Where are they ? O where are 
they ? " She followed us across the lake, accusing us 
of robbery, and asking the same question over and over. 
But whatever the meaning of Hukweem's crying, 
it seems to constitute a large part of his existence. 
Indeed, it is as a cry that he is chiefly known — the 
wild, unearthly cry of the wilderness night. His 
education for this begins very early. Once I was 
exploring the grassy shores of a wild lake when a 
mother loon appeared suddenly, out in the middle, 
with a great splashing and crying. I paddled out to 
see what was the matter. She withdrew with a great 
effort, apparently, as I approached, still crying loudly 
and beating the water with her wings. " Oho," I said, 
" you have a nest in there somewhere, and now you are 
trying to get me away from it." This was the only time 
I have ever known a loon to try that old mother bird's 
trick. Generally they slip off the nest while the canoe 
is yet half a mile away, and swim under water a long 
distance, and watch you silently from the other side of 
the lake. 



Hukweem the Night Voice. 139 

I went back and hunted awhile for the nest among 
the bogs of a little bay ; then left the search to investi- 
gate a strange call that sounded continuously farther 
up the shore. It came from some hidden spot in the 
tall grass, an eager little whistling cry, reminding me 
somehow of a nest of young fish-hawks. 

As I waded cautiously among the bogs, trying to 
locate the sound, I came suddenly upon the loon's nest 
— just the bare top of a bog, where the mother bird 
had pulled up the grass and hollowed the earth 
enough to keep the eggs from rolling out. They 
were there on the bare ground, two very large olive 
eggs with dark blotches. I left them undisturbed and 
went on to investigate the crying, which had stopped 
a moment as I approached the nest. 

Presently it began again behind me, faint at first, 
then louder and more eager, till I traced it back to 
Hukweem's household. But there was nothing here 
to account for it, only two innocent-looking eggs on 
top of a bog. I bent over to examine them more 
closely. There, on the sides, were two holes, and out 
of the holes projected the points of two tiny bills. 
Inside were two little loons, crying at the top of 
their lungs, "Let me out! O let me out! It's hot 
in here. Let me out — Oooo-eee ! pip-pip-pip ! " 

But I left the work of release to the mother bird, 



140 Wilderness Ways. 

thinking she knew more about it. Next day I went 
back to the place, and, after much watching, saw two 
little loons stealing in and out among the bogs, exult- 
ing in their freedom, but silent as two shadows. The 
mother bird was off on the lake, fishing for their 
dinner. 

Hukweem's fishing is always an interesting thing to 
watch. Unfortunately he is so shy that one seldom 
gets a good opportunity. Once I found his favorite 
fishing ground, and came every day to watch him from 
a thicket on the shore. It was of little use to go in a 
canoe. At my approach he would sink deeper and 
deeper in the water, as if taking in ballast. How he 
does this is a mystery; for his body is much lighter 
than its bulk of water. Dead or alive, it floats like a 
cork ; yet without any perceptible motion, by an effort 
of will apparently, he sinks it out of sight. You are 
approaching in your canoe, and he moves off slowly, 
swinging his head from side to side so as to look at 
you first with one eye, then with the other. Your 
canoe is swift ; he sees that you are gaining, that you 
are already too near. He swings on the water, and sits 
watching you steadily. Suddenly he begins to sink, 
deeper and deeper, till his back is just awash. Go a 
little nearer, and now his body disappears ; only his 
neck and head remain above water. Raise your hand, 



Hukweem the Night Voice. 141 

or make any quick motion, and he is gone altogether. 
He dives like a flash, swims deep and far, and when he 
comes to the surface will be .well out of danger. 

If you notice the direction of his bill as it enters 
the water, you can tell fairly well about where he will 
come up again. It was confusing at first, in chasing 
him, to find that he rarely came up where he was ex- 
pected. I would paddle hard in the direction he was 
going, only to find him far to the right or left, or 
behind me, when at last he showed himself. That was 
because I followed his body, not his bill. Moving in 
one direction, he will turn his head and dive. That is 
to mislead you, if you are following him. Follow his 
bill, as he does himself, and you will be near him when 
he rises ; for he rarely turns under water. 

With two good men to paddle, it is not difficult to 
tire him out. Though he swims w T ith extraordinary 
rapidity under water — fast enough to follow and catch 
a trout — a long deep dive tires him, and he must rest 
before another. If you are chasing him, shout and 
wave your hat the moment he appears, and paddle hard 
the way his bill points as he dives again. The next 
time he comes up you are nearer to him. Send him 
down again quick, and after him. The next time he 
is frightened to see the canoe so close, and dives deep, 
which tires him the more. So his disappearances 



H 2 Wilderness Ways. 

become shorter and more confused ; you follow him 
more surely because you can see him plainly now as he 
goes down. Suddenly he bursts out of water beside 
you, scattering the spray into your canoe. Once he 
came up under my paddle, and I plucked a feather 
from his back before he got away. 

This last appearance always scares him out of his 
wits, and you get what you have been working hard 
for — a sight of Hukweem getting under way. Away 
he goes in a smother of spray, beating the water with 
his wings, kicking hard to lift himself up ; and so for 
a hundred yards, leaving a wake like a stern-wheel 
steamer, till he gathers headway enough to rise from 
the water. 

After that first start there is no sign of awkward- 
ness. His short wings rise and fall with a rapidity 
that tries the eye to follow, like the rush of a coot 
down wind to decoys. You can hear the swift, strong 
beat of them, far over your head, when he is not 
calling. His flight is very rapid, very even, and often 
at enormous altitudes. But when he wants to come 
down he always gets frightened, thinking of his short 
wings, and how high he is, and how fast he is going. 
On the ocean, in winter, where he has all the room he 
wants, he sometimes comes down in a great incline, 
miles long, and plunges through and over a dozen 



Hukweem the Night Voice. 143 

waves, like a dolphin, before he can stop. But where 
the lake is small, and he cannot come down that way, 
he has a dizzy time of it. 

Once, on a little lake in September, I used to watch 
for hours to get a sight of the process. Twelve or 
fifteen loons were gathered there, holding high carni- 
val. They called down every migrating loon that 
passed that way; their numbers increased daily. 
Twilight was the favorite time for arriving. In the 
stillness I would hear Hukweem far away, so high 
that he was only a voice. Presently I would see him 
whirling over the lake in a great circle. — " Come down, 
O come down," cry all the loons. " I 'm afraid, 000-ho- 
ho-ho-ho-hoooo-eee, I 'm afraid," says Hukweem, who is 
perhaps a little loon, all the way from Labrador on 
his first migration, and has never come down from a 
height before. " Come on, O come oh-ho-ho-ho-ho-hon. 
It won't hurt you; we did it; come on," cry all the 
loons. 

Then Hukweem would slide lower with each circle, 
whirling round and round the lake in a great spiral, 
yelling all the time, and all the loons answering. 
When low enough, he would set his wings and 
plunge like a catapult at the very midst of the as- 
sembly, which scattered wildly, yelling like school- 
boys — "Look out! he'll break his neck; he'll hit 



144 Wilderness Ways. 

you; he '11 break your back if he hits you." — So they 
splashed away in a desperate fright, each one looking 
back over his shoulder to see Hukweem come down, 
which he would do at a terrific pace, striking the water 
with a mighty splash, and shooting half across the 
lake in a smother of white, before he could get his 
legs under him and turn around. Then all the loons 
would gather round him, cackling, shrieking, laughing, 
with such a din as the little loon never heard in his 
life before ; and he would go off in the midst of them, 
telling them, no doubt, what a mighty thing it was to 
come down from so high and not break his neck. 

A little later in the fall I saw those same loons do 
an astonishing thing. For several evenings they had 
been keeping up an unusual racket in a quiet bay, 
out of sight of my camp. I asked Simmo what he 
thought they were doing. — " O, I don' know, playin' 
game, I guess, jus' like one boy. Hukweem do dat 
sometime, wen he not hungry," said Simmo, going on 
with his bean-cooking. That excited my curiosity; 
but when I reached the bay it was too dark to see 
what they were playing. 

One evening, when I was fishing at the inlet, the 
racket was different from any I had heard before. 
There would be an interval of perfect silence, broken 
suddenly by wild yelling; then the ordinary loon talk 



Hukweem the Night Voice. 145 

for a few minutes, and another silence, broken by a 
shriller outcry. That meant that something unusual 
was going on, so I left the trout, to find out about it. 

When I pushed my canoe through the fringe of 
water-grass on the point nearest the loons, they were 
scattered in a long line, twelve or fifteen of them, ex- 
tending from the head of the bay to a point nearly 
opposite me. At the other end of the line two loons 
were swimming about, doing something which I could 
not make out. Suddenly the loon talk ceased. There 
may have been a signal given, which I did not hear. 
Anyway, the two loons faced about at the same 
moment and came tearing down the line, using 
wings and feet to help in the race. The upper 
loons swung in behind them as they passed, so as to 
watch the finish better; but not a sound was heard 
till they passed my end of the line in a close, hard 
race, one scarcely a yard ahead of the other, when such 
a yelling began as I never heard before. All the loons 
gathered about the two swimmers; there was much 
cackling and crying, which grew gradually quieter ; 
then they began to string out in another long line, and 
two more racers took their places at one end of it. By 
that time it was almost dark, and I broke up the race 
trying to get nearer in my canoe so as to watch things 
better. 



146 Wilderness Ways. 

Twice since then I have heard from summer camp- 
ers of their having seen loons racing across a lake. I 
have no doubt it is a frequent pastime with the birds 
when the summer cares for the young are ended, and 
autumn days are mellow, and fish are plenty, and there 
are long hours just for fun together, before Hukweem 
moves southward for the hard solitary winter life on 
the sea-coast. 

Of all the loons that cried out to me in the night, 
or shared the summer lakes with me, only one ever 
gave me the opportunity of watching at close quarters. 
It was on a very wild lake, so wild that no one had 
ever visited it before in summer, and a mother loon felt 
safe in leaving the open shore, where she generally 
nests, and placing her eggs on a bog at the head of a 
narrow bay. I found them there a day or two after 
my arrival. 

I used to go at all hours of the day, hoping the 
mother would get used to me and my canoe, so that 
I could watch her later, teaching her little ones; but 
her wildness was unconquerable. Whenever I came 
in sight of the nest-bog, with only the loon's neck 
and head visible, standing up very straight and still in 
the grass, I would see her slip from the nest, steal 
away through the green cover to a deep place, and 
glide under water without leaving a ripple. Then, 



Hukwe em the Night Voice. 147 

looking sharp over the side into the clear water, I 
would get a glimpse of her, just a gray streak with a 
string of silver bubbles, passing deep and swift under 
my canoe. So she went through the opening, and 
appeared far out in the lake, where she would swim 
back and forth, as if fishing, until I went away. As I 
never disturbed her nest, and always paddled away 
soon, she thought undoubtedly that she had fooled 
me, and that I knew nothing about her or her nest. 

Then I tried another plan. I lay down in my canoe, 
and had Simmo paddle me up to the nest. While the 
loon was out on the lake, hidden by the grassy shore, 
I went and sat on a bog, with a friendly alder bending 
over me, within twenty feet of the nest, which was in 
plain sight. Then Simmo paddled away, and Huk- 
weem came back without the slightest suspicion. As 
I had supposed, from the shape of the nest, she did not 
sit on her two eggs ; she sat on the bog instead, and 
gathered them close to her side with her wing. That 
was all the brooding they had, or needed ; for within 
a week there were two bright little loons to watch in- 
stead of the eggs. 

After the first success I used to go alone and, while 
the mother bird was out on the. lake, would pull my 
canoe up in the grass, a hundred yards or so below 
the nest. From here I entered the alders and made 



148 Wilderness Ways. 

my way to the bog, where I could watch Hukweem at 
my leisure. After a long wait she would steal into the 
bay very shyly, and after much fear and circumspection 
glide up to the canoe. It took a great deal of looking 
and listening to convince her that it was harmless, and 
that I was not hiding near in the grass. Once con- 
vinced, however, she would come direct to the nest ; 
and I had the satisfaction at last of watching a loon 
at close quarters. 

She would sit there for hours — never sleeping 
apparently, for her eye was always bright — preening 
herself, turning her head slowly, so as to watch on all 
sides, snapping now and then at an obtrusive fly, all 
in utter unconsciousness that I was just behind her, 
watching every movement. Then, when I had enough, 
I would steal away along a caribou path, and push off 
quietly in my canoe without looking back. She saw 
me, of course, when I entered the canoe, but not 
once did she leave the nest. When I reached the 
open lake, a little searching with my glass always 
showed me her head there in the grass, still turned 
in my direction apprehensively. 

I had hoped to see her let the little ones out of their 
hard shell, and see them first take the water; but that 
was too much to expect. One day I heard them 
whistling in the eggs ; the next day, when I came, 



Hukweem the Night Voice. 149 

there was nothing to be seen on the nest-bog. I 
feared that something had heard their whistling and 
put an untimely end to the young Hukweems while 
mother bird was away. But when she came back, 
after a more. fearful survey than usual of the old bark 
canoe, two downy little fellows came bobbing to meet 
her out of the grass, where she had hidden them and 
told them to stay till she came back. 

It was a rare treat to watch them at their first feed- 
ing, the little ones all eagerness, bobbing about in the 
delight of eating and the wonder of the new great 
world, the mother all tenderness and watchfulness. 
Hukweem had never looked to me so noble before. 
This great wild mother bird, moving ceaselessly with 
marvelous grace about her little ones, watching their 
play with exquisite fondness, and watching the great 
dangerous world for their sakes, now chiding them 
gently, now drawing near to touch them with her 
strong bill, or to rub their little cheeks with hers, 
or just to croon over them in an ecstasy of that 
wonderful mother love which makes the summer 
wilderness beautiful, — in ten minutes she upset all 
my theories, and won me altogether, spite of what 
I had heard and seen of her destructiveness on the 
fishing grounds. After all, why should she not fish 
as well as I ? 



15° Wilderness Ways. 

And then began the first lessons in swimming and 
hiding and diving, which I had waited so long to see. 

Later I saw her bring little fish, which she had 
slightly wounded, turn them loose in shallow water, 
and with a sharp cluck bring the young loons out of 
their hiding, to set them chasing and diving wildly for 
their own dinners. But before that happened there 
was almost a tragedy. 

One day, while the mother was gone fishing, the 
little ones came out of their hiding among the grasses, 
and ventured out some distance into the bay. It was 
their first journey alone into the world; they were full 
of the wonder and importance of it. Suddenly, as I 
watched, they began to dart about wildly, moving 
with astonishing rapidity for such little fellows, and 
whistling loudly. From the bank above, a swift ripple 
had cut out into the water between them and the only 
bit of bog with which they were familiar. Just behind 
the ripple were the sharp nose and the beady eyes of 
Musquash, who is always in some mischief of this 
kind. y In one of his prowlings he had discovered the 
little brood; now he was manceuvering craftily to 
keep the frightened youngsters moving till they 
should be tired out, while he himself crept care- 
fully between them and the shore. 

Musquash knows well that when a young loon, or a 



Hukweem the Night Voice. 1 5 1 

shelldrake, or a black duck, is caught in the open like 
that, he always tries to get back where his mother hid 
him when she went away. . That is what the poor 
little fellows were trying to do now, only to be driven 
back and kept moving wildly by the muskrat, who 
lifted himself now and then from the water, and wig- 
gled his ugly jaws in anticipation of the feast. He 
had missed the eggs in his search ; but young loon 
would be better, and more of it. — " There you are ! " 
he snapped viciously, lunging at the nearest loon, 
which flashed under water and barely escaped. 

I had started up to interfere, for I had grown fond 
of the little wild things whose growth I had watched 
from the beginning, when a great splashing began on 
my left, and I saw the old mother bird coming like a 
fury. She was half swimming, half flying, tearing 
over the water at a great pace, a foamy white wake 
behind her. — " Now, you little villain, take your medi- 
cine. It 's coming ; it 's coming," I cried excitedly, 
and dodged back to watch. But Musquash, intent on 
his evil doing (he has no need whatever to turn 
flesh-eater), kept on viciously after the exhausted 
little ones, paying no heed to his rear. 

Twenty yards away the mother bird, to my great 
astonishment, flashed out of sight under water. 
What could it mean ! But there was little time to 



15 2 Wilderness Ways. 

wonder. Suddenly a catapult seemed to strike the 
muskrat from beneath and lift him clear from the 
water. With a tremendous rush and sputter Huk- 
weem came out beneath him, her great pointed bill 
driven through to his spine. Little need of my help 
now. With another straight hard drive, this time at 
eye and brain, she flung him aside disdainfully and 
rushed to her shivering little ones, questioning, chid- 
ing, praising them, all in the same breath, fluttering 
and cackling low in an hysteric wave of tenderness. 
Then she swam twice around the dead muskrat and 
led her brood away from the place. 

Perhaps it was to one of those same little ones that 
I owe a service for which I am more than grateful. It 
was in September, when I was at a lake ten miles 
away — the same lake into which a score of frolicking 
young loons gathered before moving south, and swam 
a race or two for my benefit. I was lost one day, 
hopelessly lost, in trying to make my way from a wild 
little lake where I had been fishing, to the large lake 
where my camp was. It was late afternoon. To 
avoid the long hard tramp down a river, up which 
I had come in the early morning, I attempted to cut 
across through unbroken forest without a compass. 
Traveling through a northern forest in summer is 
desperately hard- work. The moss is ankle deep, the 



Hukweem the Night Voice. 153 

underbrush thick ; fallen logs lie across each other in 
hopeless confusion, through and under and over which 
one must make his laborious way, stung and pestered 
by hordes of black flies and mosquitoes. So that, 
unless you have a strong instinct of direction, it is 
almost impossible to hold your course without a 
compass, or a bright sun, to guide you. 

I had not gone half the distance before I was astray. 
The sun was long obscured, and a drizzling rain set 
in, without any direction whatever in it by the time it 
reached the underbrush where I was. I had begun to 
make a little shelter, intending to put in a cheerless 
night there, when I heard a cry, and looking up 
caught a glimpse of Hukweem speeding high over 
the tree-tops. Far down on my right came a faint 
answering cry, and I hastened in its direction, making 
an Indian compass of broken twigs as I went along. 
Hukweem was a young loon, and was long in coming 
down. The crying ahead grew louder. Stirred up 
from their day rest by his arrival, the other loons 
began their sport earlier than usual. The crying 
soon became almost continuous, and I followed it 
straight to the lake. 

Once there, it was a simple matter to find the river 
and my old canoe waiting patiently under the alders 
in the gathering twilight. Soon I was afloat again, 



154 Wilderness Ways. 

with a sense of unspeakable relief that only one can 
appreciate who has been lost and now hears the 
ripples sing under him, knowing that the cheerless 
woods lie behind, and that the camp-fire beckons 
beyond yonder point. The loons were hallooing far 
away, and I went over — this time in pure gratitude — 
to see them again. But my guide was modest and 
vanished post-haste into the mist the moment my 
canoe appeared. 

Since then, whenever I hear Hukweem in the 
night, or hear others speak of his unearthly laughter, 
I think of that cry over the tree-tops, and the thrilling 
answer far away. And the sound has a ring to it, in 
my ears, that it never had before. Hukweem the 
Night Voice found me astray in the woods, and 
brought me safe to a snug camp. — That is a ser- 
vice which one does not forget in the wilderness. 



GLOSSARY OF INDIAN NAMES. 

Cheplahgan, chep-ldh'-gan, the bald eagle. 

Chigwooltz, chig-wooltz', the bullfrog. 

Cldte Scarpe, a legendary hero, like Hiawatha, of the Northern Indians. 

Pronounced variously, Clote Scarpe, Groscap, Gluscap, etc. 
Hukweem, huk-weem' , the great northern diver, or loon. 
Ismaques, iss-ma-qites' ', the fish-hawk. 
Kagax, kdg'-dx, the weasel. 

Killooleet, kil'-loo-leet, the white-throated sparrow. 
Kookooskoos, koo-koo-skoos', the great horned owl. 
Lhoks, locks, the panther. 
Malsun, mal'-sun, the wolf. 
Meeko, ?neek'-d, the red squirrel. 
Megaleep, vieg'-d-leep, the caribou, 

Milicete, mil'-i-cete, the name of an Indian tribe ; written also Malicete. 
Moktaques, mok-td'-ques, the hare. 
Mooween, 7noo-ween' ', the black bear. 
Nemox, nem'-ox, the fisher. 
Pekquam, pek-wam', the fisher. 
Seksagadagee, sek'-sd-gd-dd'-gee, the grouse. 
Tookhees, tok'-hees, the wood mouse. 
Upweekis, np-week'-iss, the Canada lynx. 



SEP 29 1900 




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